


as the world caves in

by september28



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Blood, Blood Drinking, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Depression, Dominant Kylo Ren, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, F/M, Misuse of the Force, Orgasm Denial, Rey Needs A Hug, Sith Rey, Sith Training, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:28:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23782366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/september28/pseuds/september28
Summary: Rey joins forces with Kylo on Starkiller Base when he offers her a way to find her parents. Set out on their way to Supreme Leader Snoke, things on the Finalizer are rough as both Rey and Kylo struggle to understand why the Force is affecting them differently. However, things don't work out the way they plan.- tags are added as plot occurs
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey
Comments: 11
Kudos: 22





	1. The Note

**Author's Note:**

> literally this is a work in progress, i'm bored in quarantine and i just want some fun reylo stuff to read. i'm gonna add more chapters everyday probably bc there is nothing better to do now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is from rey's pov, as well as the next few chapters. if the pov is unclear, check the chapter notes :)

Today is the first day I have ever woken up in a bed.

Maybe that’s not the right phrase. I have had beds - there was the small sheet and the flat pillow on Jakku, the cot on the Millenium Falcon, and a couple of blankets here and there to sleep on. Today is the first day I have ever woken up in a _real_ bed, one with sheets, one with not one, but two pillows, one that was wide enough to fit my body, and one with a soft mattress. Was this in every room on the Finalizer? Surely not…

The bed isn’t the only nice thing about the room - no, not just the room. It’s _my_ room now. The walls are pale grey and the floor is a solid, squeaky black color. The sheets - silk? Who knows - were also black. The bed has a post on every corner, and the mattress sits atop a frame of a dresser. Besides the bed, there is a bedside table with a clock and a lamp on it, and that is all. A small bathroom juts off from the main room, and opposing that is a door. 

I haven’t left the room since I arrived on the Finalizer yesterday morning - even if I wanted to, it would probably not be a good idea. 

Once I was on the Silencer, Kylo Ren and I didn’t discuss much. He was silent for most of it, and I was too. Once we were finally docking on the Finalizer, he grabbed my arm harshly and pulled me towards him. “I’ll have someone escort you to a spare room. Don’t leave it until I come for you.”

I didn’t say anything, but I shook my head. He placed his helmet on and left. That was the last I had seen of him, and it had been over twenty-four hours. Thankfully, I had been asleep for those past hours. I didn’t even bother to change out of my bloody clothes before climbing into the bed. I should probably change that

I sat up and instantly regretted it, clutching my side whenever it pulsed in pain. _What the fuck happened there?_ I looked down, trying to pry the folds of my clothing off of whatever wound was there, but it had scabbed over and was stuck like glue. Okay, definitely time for a shower.

I placed one foot off the side of the bed, still holding the side of my body. When my other foot hit the ground, another wave of pain wracked my body. I could do this. The shower was only a couple feet away - ten steps, twenty steps? I could do it. _Just whatever you do, don’t fall over._

I undid my hair from the buns it was in and took off as many pieces of clothes as I could. The arm pads were easy, and so were the pants, but the shirt stuck. I ended up taking it off the best that I could and letting it hang, still attached to my skin and stepped into the hot water.

Water was my happy place. From lakes, oceans, rivers, to showers or baths, water was comforting. There was something about the way that it washes everything away, and how it could make a person feel new again. It was one of the few things I could remember about my family. While Jakku was a desert planet, it didn’t mean there were no sources of water. When they had spare time, they would take me to the Gulf, where I could swim and play as much as I wanted.

This time, when pain racked my body, it wasn’t from the wound in my side, but from the memory of my parents. It was going to be okay, though. I was going to find them.

During the battle on Starkiller Base, I realized that the power Kylo had was too much for me to beat, too much for anyone to beat. If he could sense where I was, using the power of the Force, maybe he could teach me how to do the same thing. He said that I was strong enough to use it, so there must be a way that I can find my parents through it. 

I slowly tug the shirt away from my body, exposing the flesh to the hot water. While it burns, I am comforted by the fact that it will cleanse me. Suddenly, I can feel him.

_He’s here._

There’s a knock on the door, and I rush to turn off the water and wrap myself in a towel. I pat myself dry as quickly as I can and end up ripping the scab open again. Fresh blood spills onto the towel as I turn the knob quickly, but only open the door enough to crack it.

Where I expect to see Kylo Ren, I see a red stormtrooper in his place. The feeling that I had before where I could sense him is gone. I almost want to look down the hallway to see if he’s really not there. “What took so long?” 

“I was showering,” I say quickly, trying to ignore the pain in my side. I look at the hand that is holding the towel around my side, watching the blood come off in little rivers on my skin. “What do you want?”

The stormtrooper holds a bag out. “These are some clothes, along with some other things you will need here. Commander Ren will be contacting you shortly.” I reach around the door and grab the bag, and before I can say thank you, the stormtrooper leaves.

There are only a couple of things in the bag. There are a couple of black shirts, one long sleeve and one short sleeve, and pants, a small metal circle, a notebook and pen, and - much to my surprise - a blaster. I set the metal circle on the bedside table, slowly putting on the long sleeve shirt while holding the towel against my side so that it absorbs the blood. I push my hair up and sit on the bed after pushing the rest of the contents into a drawer beneath the mattress. 

Okay, so the clothes were nice. That’s definitely something I wouldn’t have if I was still on Jakku. If I wasn’t here, on the Finalizer, I would probably be with BB8 on our way to Leia with Finn and- 

_Oh fuck. Finn._

I grab the notebook and pen and start scribbling a note. He probably thinks I’ve forgotten about him or thinks I’ve turned to the Dark Side, or maybe he thinks I’ve died? I never got to say goodbye to him. Damn it.

_Finn - I’m so sorry to leave you like this. I told you I would go to Jakku when this was all over, but my parents will not come for me there. I have to find them. I will come back and see you when it is safe. I hope you are okay. x Rey_

I fold the note and put it in my dresser, under the bag. I’ll find a way to send it to him. 

The metal circle starts to glow on the outside ring, startling me. It pulses off and on like I’m supposed to touch it, but there is no button to press. I shove the dresser drawer shut and touch the middle of it cautiously. It lights up with a hologram.

It’s Kylo Ren.

“Rey.” He says, voice cracking through the circle. I’m in awe. I’ve never seen anything like this before, something so advanced in technology. How does it work? Can he hear me? “I have discussed plans with General Hux and Supreme Leader Snoke. I request your company at twelve hundred hours. I will meet you outside your quarters. Be ready.”

Before I can say anything, he signs off. I glance at the clock, which flashes with a neon eleven. One hour. I can prepare myself. I’ll be ready for him.


	2. The Teacher

Twelve hundred hours come quicker than I think it does. Before I took his hand and jumped onto the Silencer, he told me that he would help me.  _ “You need a teacher.”  _ He had said.  _ “I can show you the ways of the Force.”  _ He was right. 

There’s a knock on my door.

Before waiting for me to open it, Kylo Ren opens it himself, barging into the room. “I told you to wait outside.” 

I’m completely startled, taking in everything at once. Kylo is almost a foot bigger than me, dressed in all black, with his saber at his belt, and wearing his mask. I shake all of the fear I have from my body. “It’s rude to come in like that.”

“I knocked first. That’s good enough.” He replies, voice crackling through the mask. He looks over the room once as if there is something wrong with it. “Come.”

Without waiting for me, he turns and leaves. I scramble to catch up with him as he walks through the hallway, as his strides are almost twice what mine are. “Where are we going?” I ask.

“You’ll see.” He says, and I stop in my tracks, folding my arms. He turns around to face me again.

“No,” I say. “I’m not going one step further until you tell me where we are going.”

He walks up to me so fast it feels like he teleported, and suddenly he is inches from my face. “We are going to lunch. You look like a skeleton.” Without another word, he turns around quickly. I walk beside him for the most part, glancing over to him ever so often. If he wasn’t wearing the helmet, I’d be able to gauge his expression. 

The Finalizer is a strange ship to walk through. The hallways are shiny black and grey, much like the rest of the ship, and there are little droids that run past us on the ground. When we pass a group of stormtroopers, they halt and nod their heads in respect to Kylo. He doesn’t do anything back.

After walking through the ship for what feels like ten minutes, we come to the end of a hallway, where there is a door. 

“Go inside.” He says. I raise an eyebrow, waiting for him to tell me what’s there. When he doesn’t, I agree. It can’t be that bad.

When I walk in, I’m taken back by the amount of food on the table - or more like a platform - in front of us. The room is large but only has three sides. The fourth side is a window that takes up where the wall should be. Outside the window, there is nothing but the vast expanse of space. Besides the window, the room has a long, long table upon which food sits on, then some cushions and another table near the window.

I want to run to the window and look outside of it. I saw space through the Millenium Falcon, but never on this scale. I refrain from my thoughts and redirect my attention to the table. There is so much on it - elaborately decorated cakes, sandwiches, wine, meats, pasta, cheeses - almost more food than I could even dream of.

It disgusts me.

“Take whatever you want,” Kylo says, motioning to the end, where there are two plates and utensils. 

Once I can get over the shock of the food, I can finally respond. “I’m not hungry.”

“Bullshit.” He says. “You’ve been on this ship for over a day now, and I don’t know how long it has been since you’ve eaten before that.”

I try not to linger on the fact that he speaks as if he cares about how frequently I eat.

“And the Supreme Leader wants you healthy for your training tonight. So whether you want to or not, eat.”

My heart drops.  _ Okay, one step at a time. Just get through right now, and you can figure the rest out later.  _

I walk towards the edge of the table and grab a plate, trying to only focus on one bit of the table at a time. Looking at it all at once makes me sick to my stomach. I decide on picking up a sandwich, and suddenly I feel a weight lifted off of my shoulders, almost like I was being pressured by Kylo to pick something.

I stand there awkwardly with my one sandwich on the plate. “Um… so cushions? Is that where I sit?”

“Do you see any other chairs?” He responds.

I go to sit but notice he follows without bringing anything. “I will only eat if you do,” I say, loud enough to reach where he is.

He doesn’t sigh - not that I can hear - but I can tell he is slightly annoyed. He picks up a piece of cake and follows me, placing it on the small table in front of a cushion. I sit on the one farthest from him. He watches me intently as I mess with my fingers, then he takes his helmet off, placing it on the table beside the cake.

There is a bright red tear in his flesh from where I slashed his face two days ago. It starts at the tip of his hairline and follows down to his neck. I feel horrible seeing what I did to him, the fact that I caused so much pain, and that it was all because I thought I was doing what was right.

“Do you have a problem?” He says, dark eyes meeting mine as he takes a piece of cake with his fingers and eats it. 

_ Don’t say something about the scar don’t say something about the scar don’t say - _

“Why do you have all of this food here if you’re not eating it?” I say. “It seems like an abuse of power.”

“An abuse of power.” He scoffs. “Whatever I don’t eat is sent to the cafeteria, where the soldiers eat. There’s more there for them. Does that satisfy you?”

“Yes,” I respond, taking a small bite from my sandwich. It’s sweet, tough, and tangy. I’ve never tasted anything like it in my life. Jakku had no spices or anything; if we grabbed enough metal for the day, we could pay for instant bread loaves. “Why are we eating here?”

“I don’t eat with the other soldiers. Sometimes Hux will join, sometimes not. I figured you would rather eat here than with some troops who you tried to kill only a little bit ago.” He smirks, like it’s a joke, then returns to his usual demeanor.

It’s silent for a few minutes, as he finishes his cake and I my sandwich. I decide to break it. “You told me you would help me find my parents.”

He glances at me. “I did.”

“Stop giving me stupid answers. I want to know how.” I say, becoming angry. I left everything I had, I left Leia, Finn, Han, BB8 - everyone I had come to know and who accepted me. I left them all… for this?

“I am training you tonight.” He says, standing up. “We will be strengthening your mind. Everything you need to know has been given to you, you just have to work with it.”

“That’s dumb. If I knew everything I needed then I wouldn’t be here. I would’ve found my parents already. This is up to you. I came here so you could find my parents, so I’ll give you whatever power you want from me and my mind. Just fucking find them, okay?”

His face changes again, almost into a grin. He laughs. “Angry, are we?”

_ Yeah, we’re pretty fucking angry.  _ “Whatever you think I have, I don’t. I can’t use the Force to do much of anything, but I can give all the power I have to you if that's how it works or whatever -”

In the span of less than a second, Kylo turns around and hurls the plate at me, I grab the blaster from the waistband of my pants and shoot it. The plate breaks a couple of feet in front of me, shattering into a thousand pieces. I’m out of breath, shocked, confused -

“You said you can’t use the Force.” He says. “Something told you to bring the blaster here. Something told you that the plate was coming towards your face. That’s what the Force is. It teaches you to feel disturbances, to feel and react to what’s happening before anyone else can. You can’t take it away from someone.”

He stretches his hand out and his helmet flies towards him. “I can teach you how to use the Force. You have everything you need. If you help me with what I need from you, then I will help you as best as I can to find your parents.”

He puts the helmet on and turns towards the door. “Meet me here, twenty-hundred hours.”

When he leaves, I still haven’t moved my hands to put the blaster down or from the cushion. Once my heart rate slows down, I put my head in my hands.  _ It’s okay. Just find them, and everything will be okay _ . I stand up again, keeping the blaster at my side as I exit the room and walk through the halls.

I’m not sure quite how, but I’m able to find my room with ease. I tuck the blaster on the side of my bed and open the drawer to grab the note, holding it close to my chest.

_ Everything will be okay. _


	3. The Waves

When I arrive at the room at twenty hundred hours, the platform has been removed, as well as the cushions and table. I walk over to the large window, inspecting the void like I wanted to earlier.

There must be a thousand stars, so tiny and so pure. I could sit here forever to count them all. In the distance sits two small planets, with lots of ship debris surrounding it, almost like rings circling the two. It must be the Kuat System. 

Even though the worlds are surrounded by garbage, there is a certain kind of beauty I admire about it. The way that the rings seem to turn around the planets as they orbit the Kuat star.

I extend my hand, about to touch the glass. I wonder how thick it is -

The door suddenly opens, and I whip my head around. Kylo Ren enters, taking his mask off and setting it on the ground. He seems frustrated, I can tell when he practically slams the door shut.

“Is everything okay -” I start, but suddenly there is huge pressure on my head. It feels like there is a weight on my brain, crushing it as I twist my head and crouch to ground. The pain is unbearable, worse than the wound at my side that still hasn’t completely scabbed up yet. 

“If you want me to stop, you have to fight it.” He says, and when I look at him, I see that his hand is stretched out like it's grabbing something. He starts to squeeze his fingers such that the black leather pulls taught over his knuckles, and my eyesight goes blurry with tears. The ringing in my ears grows louder and the pain from my head starts traveling down my neck.

I open my mouth to yell at him, to tell him to stop, but all that comes out is a cry. I can’t fight it, I can’t overpower him, I don’t even know  _ how  _ to make it stop.

I scream, and the sound that comes out of my mouth sounds like screeching metal, alien-like to what my voice really is. The weight is lifted off of my shoulders and I fall to my hands and knees, completely out of breath. My eyes are still glassed over, ears still ringing. 

“That took longer than I thought it would,” Kylo says, walking towards where my body is on the ground. “You used to be able to push me out of your head, now you can’t even handle the pressure.”

I lift my head up and spit at him, pushing myself off the ground to face him. “You  _ dick. _ I thought you were supposed to train me, not fucking crush my skull.”

He looks at where I spit on the ground and steps over it, extending a hand to me. “You can’t see the pain as pain, it’s only an obstacle to overcome. If you get through it, you can control it. Get up.” 

I cautiously look at his hand, tears finally subsiding along with the ringing. I push myself onto my feet without his help. We are close, less than a couple of feet, and it’s intimidating to be so close to the man who just put me through so much pain. I won’t back down. He won’t get the best of me.

“Try again.” He says, finally backing down and walking so that there are at least twenty feet between us. He stretches out his arm and looks at me. “I won’t go as hard this time. I’ll start slow.”

I take a shaky breath and reluctantly nod. His fingers slowly come closer to each other but don’t touch, and the pain starts again. This time, I lock my jaw and close my eyes. In the black abyss in my mind, I try to find something,  _ anything _ , to help me. The pain increases slowly, and I can feel his fingers moving. However, this time there is something radiating off of his hand and flowing towards me, penetrating my body and surging to my brain. It becomes hotter as it gets to my head, and I wince in pain.

“Fight it, Rey.” Kylo Ren’s voice enters my mind, and I’m not completely sure he’s saying it out loud. “Push through it.”

I stretch a handout, eyes still closed, and watch the waves from my body course into my hands. There are red waves still moving towards my head as the pain increases, but one turns into a dim grey wave, flushing out through my fingertips. Once it leaves my finger, the grey wave travels towards Kylo, then falls off towards the floor.

He’s going easy on me, but as I watch more red waves flow through the void of my mind, I feel the temperature rise in my body again as they hit me. I straighten my fingers, trying to force the waves to turn grey.

Another one turns grey, then another, and soon there are two waves running through my fingers again, hitting the floor as soon as they come out. The pain increases, and I try again. I have to turn more grey unless I want to end up on the floor again, covered in all red and crying.

I get to the point where I can balance the grey and red waves, where an even amount is flowing in and out, and the pain stays at a constant level. 

“Make the pain stop completely,” Kylo says, and this time I’m sure I hear it. I stretch my hand out farther, trying to force the waves toward him. If I can force my waves to get to where his red ones are protruding from, I can make it stop. 

I grimace and try harder, and when the grey moves from my hand it hits the midpoint between us. The ringing in my ears picks up again.

“Kylo - I can’t do it -” I say and the grey stops coming from my hands. Red surges into me like a flood, overwhelming all of my senses. I can’t open my eyes, I can’t face myself or him.

“Fine.” He says, and when he takes another breath, more red flows from his body like a wave. I feel as though I am drowning in an ocean. It’s harder to breathe. When the wave gets to me, the pain is worse than before, and I am blinded with rage as he continues the assault.

I open my eyes immediately and force all of my energy out in one scream. I feel a cold shiver through my body and flush across the room, making Kylo take a couple of steps back. The heat from the waves he was sending to me stops, and eventually I don’t feel it anymore. My eyes aren’t closed anymore, yet I can sense a shift in his mood - shock? Wonder?

I raise my head to look at him, wiping the tears from my eyes. The pain completely stops. I stand up. “You said you were gonna take it slow,” I yell at him, and he smirks.

“You weren’t responding as well as I wanted you to.” He replies.

“I can’t just magically do everything right, you have to teach me, not force me to save myself from immense pain.” I clench my hands into fists beside me. 

“But you did it.” Kylo Ren says, and he presses a button on the wall that I didn’t know was there before. A droid opens the door, carrying a set of white towels. Kylo takes the towels and dismisses it.

“Here.” He says as he throws one of the towels at me. “You’re bleeding.”

What? I catch the towel and use it to wipe my eyes of tears. I touch my mouth, then my ears, then my nose, and that’s when I finally feel it - warm, thick blood. I press the towel to my nose, and dark red bloodstains it.

I look at Kylo, who appears as if nothing that he just did affected him. 

“It’s normal.” He says as if he can tell that the blood surprised me. “Everyone who uses the Force will experience it when they start out, especially Siths. It’ll go away as you grow stronger.”

I almost want to say thank you, as he did just say that the blood is normal and that there is essentially nothing to worry about, but what do I have to thank him for? Using the Force as a way to hurt me? Making me bleed? 

“I’m not a Sith,” I say. “I’m not training to be one. I’m training to find my family. Don’t get this twisted.”

“You might not be training to be one, but there are certain aspects of the Force where it is useful to harness the power there.” He informs me. “The Sith mindset is one that would greatly help you.”

He takes a couple of steps towards me. “I can sense your pain, your anger. I can tell that it’s going to consume you, Rey. It would be best to control it before it overtakes you.”

Something about the way Kylo says this about me makes me extremely uneasy, and I realize it’s because I don’t really have a use for him. He said he would help me find my parents, but what could he get from me? He never informed me of any intentions, if I was to follow in his footsteps or become something for the First Order. And why take the interest in me and not another person? I wipe more blood from my nose before responding. 

“You talk as if you know me. You’re wrong.” I say, and take a deep and shaky breath before my next sentence. “Why am I really here, Kylo?”

I search to look in his eyes, but he refuses to make eye contact with me, instead of fixating on the ground near my feet. “The Supreme Leader has not told me his intentions for you yet, only to train you to use the Force. We are en route to the Dreadnought now, and you can ask him yourself when we get there.”

Goosebumps form on my arms beneath my clothes. I bite my lip to stop myself from shaking with the unease, hard enough to bring blood breaking through the skin.

Kylo contorts his face into a grimace, and before I know what is happening, he summons his mask and turns towards the door to leave. “I’ll come to get you tomorrow morning for breakfast, eight hundred hours. Be ready.”

He leaves before I can say another word, and I’m left dabbing the blood from my nose, all alone in the room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is told from kylo's pov and will be uploaded later tonight


	4. The Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is told from kylo's pov, and i wrote it while i was a bit drunk. if anything is wrong, it's my drunk personas fault. oops!

I walk down the hall towards my room, spitting the blood that rose in my mouth. I could tell that Rey was bleeding from the moment I felt her first real manipulation of the Force. It was true that many Sith experience bleeding during their training, but what I couldn’t explain was why I could taste her blood in my mouth when she bit her lip.

I slam the door shut behind me, walking over to the location of my grandfather’s mask, where it sat on a pedestal in the corner of the room. 

I take my mask off and throw it on the bed, tossing my robes with it, and I fall to my knees in front of the disfigured helmet of Darth Vader. I close my eyes and place my hands on my knees, taking the position that I always meditate in.

_ Lord Vader, please give me guidance and wisdom as I train the girl in the footsteps of those who came before us.  _

I’ve never trained anyone before, but the blood-sharing moment that we had is something that is extremely uncommon. In all the Sith Scrolls I have read, I’ve only come across one bond such that blood was shared between the two, and it occurred over a millennium ago. 

My thoughts drift to the meeting earlier today, before my training session with the girl, and my meditation wavers a bit, causing me to sway a bit from where I am suspended in the air. 

Fucking Hux. I could trace all of my problems back to him.

-

“Supreme Leader, Commander Ren has captured the girl and we are en route to your ship as we speak.” Hux had said earlier in the meeting that day as he stood in front of the large hologram in the general body room. He had his hands behind his back, posture just  _ perfect _ , and feet at what could only be a precisely forty-five-degree angle. 

“Ah, wonderful.” Snoke had replied, and then I could feel his gaze on me as I sat in the cushioned chair in the corner. I swung my legs off the side of the chair and stood up, walking to where the base of the hologram was. “And you, Ren - how did you manage this?”

I looked at the ground. “I did as you said, Master. I told the girl I could help her find her parents.”

“Good.” Snoke smiled, he actually smiled like it was something that delighted him. “General Hux -” Hux’s head piped up at the mention of his name “- leave us be.”

“But Supreme Leader, I have more information leading to -” 

“Now.” Snoke’s tone was dark, cold. Hux had given a defeated sigh and left. I took my place back on the cushioned chair, sending it towards the center of the room so that I was sitting before Snoke.

“You think that the girl has some importance for us?” I had asked him.

“I sense that there is a great amount of evil inside of her,” Snoke replied. “She will be powerful, almost as powerful as you. You must bring her to me at once.”

“I don’t understand.” I had said. “What about her brings us closer to Luke Skywalker?”

Snoke smirked. “She is essential in bringing the end of the Jedi. Do not question my methods, Ren. I have great plans for the girl; some of these plans you will not agree with.”

I looked up at him. “Like what?”

“You need to prepare her before you reach my ship. I want her immersed into the Force well enough that she is strong with it, comfortable bending it to her will.”

“You want me to train her?” I stood up out of the chair. “I convinced her to come to the ship with the promise of finding her parents, and as stupid as it was, she believed it. I’ve done my part, and now I’ll let you do whatever you want with her. I don’t need to babysit a child.”

“Careful, Kylo Ren.” Snoke’s voice became quiet, and I stopped. “I only tolerate your attitude. Do not push your luck.”

I sat back down in the chair, thinking. Why the  _ fuck  _ did I need to train her? She was nothing, she came from nothing, she just got lucky enough to sense the Force; and now since we crossed paths, I have to train her from scratch, like one of those fucking Jedi temple children the Scrolls mention. 

“I shall do whatever you ask me to, Master.” I bowed down in front of him.

“Good. I will see you in a few weeks.”

-

A knock on the door interrupts me from my thoughts, and I fall to the floor.  _ God damn it. Whoever the fuck is knocking at this hour must have a deathwish. I’ll kill them.  _

When I open the door, there is a lady dressed in grey clothing with an apron, wearing a medical mask on her lower face. She nods her head in respect.

“Commander Ren, the girl which you brought to the ship was found unconscious outside of Cubic C-30. One of the medics recognized her and asked me to get you, I’m so sorry to disturb you this late -”

Before she can say another word, I shut the door in her face. Stupid girl, always places where she shouldn’t be. Rey was fine when I left her, the bleeding was completely normal - okay, the fact that I could taste her blood was kind of strange, but it wasn’t strange enough to make her pass out.

I grab my robes and put my mask on, and open the door to find the girl still standing there. She looks at me with wide eyes, huge and glossed over as she might cry. Pathetic.

I walk quickly to the infirmary, the girl following close in my footsteps like a dog. If anything happens to this girl, Snoke will literally kill me. I can sense it.

The infirmary is the cleanest place on the Finalizer, and even through the mask I’m hit with the smell of alcohol and strong chemicals. I can faintly hear the girl behind me saying what room Rey is in, but I don’t need to be told. I can feel her.

I walk down the hallway and take two rights, entering the first room I see.

Rey is laying on the bed, unconscious. Her nose has been wiped clean of the blood that was already there, and her clothes have been switched to a white dress that engulfs her body. There is an IV in her right arm, a tube in her nose, and two blankets on top of her. 

I told her she looked like a skeleton earlier… but now she really did. Without the long sleeve shirt on and without her baggy attire I always saw her in, her hands had to be half the size of mine, so frail that it looked like if I touched them they would break. Her wrists are even smaller, and her collar bone protrudes from her chest.

She looks so fragile like this, so small. I can barely recognize her as the girl I practically tortured only an hour ago. I almost feel bad…

Almost.

“Commander Ren.” I look up and there is a green humanoid man standing in front of the bed. “I’m Doctor Logoy. I understand that since this patient was brought to the ship under your command, you are her primary contact.”

The words flow in one ear and out the other as I stare at Rey. I have to focus myself again to hear what he’s saying.

“She is extremely malnourished and underweight for a human girl of her age. Currently, her treatment plan for weight gain is an intravenous nasogastric tube, which is what you see in her nose. This connects to the stomach, and when the formula is placed in the tube she’s able to eat.”

I zone in and out of the conversation. How is she malnourished? I made her eat today. I know she had at least one meal today, and yeah, that’s not enough, but it’s at least something. Was the training we worked through too hard for her? It wasn’t bad, I went through the same thing when Snoke was first training me in the ways of the Sith. If anything, Snoke took less mercy on me.

“... and she will have to stay in here for at least four to six days to recover until she is sufficiently nourished enough to eat and move on her own.” Dr. Logoy finishes.

My head snaps up. “No, she won’t. She’s training, she needs to leave here by tomorrow morning. There isn’t time to be sick.” I stand up, and Dr. Logoy takes a few steps back.

“Commander Ren, that’s not a possibility right now. This girl is too weak to do anything, she must be nursed back to health slowly. She’s going to require around-the-clock care, and the best way to do that is here in the infirmary. She has no other contacts here, so I’m unable to release her.”

“Bullshit.” I step towards the man. “I’ll fucking do it myself. She has plans for the next two weeks. Just give me what I need to fix her, and I’ll do it.”

“It’s not that simple -”

“Oh, yes it is,” I say, becoming increasingly irritated. “If you don’t let me walk out of here with her, I will throw you off of this ship into space and let whatever void you fall into being your death, then come back and get her.” 

The man sends off waves of unease and stress, letting me know that I’ve won. Of course, I’ve won. I turn around to grab Rey, slowly bending down to unhook the IV from her arm. There’s nothing attached to her feeding tube, so I don’t have to worry about that right now. I put one hand under her knees and another near her shoulders, and I feel a bandage under her ribs. Dr. Logoy sees that I’m confused by it, and quickly explains.

“She had a wound, it’s going to become infected. You need to switch the bandages three times daily for proper healing. I can send someone to help -”

“No, just -” I start, unsure of where to go with my sentence.  _ What do I do? I can’t take care of her, but if Snoke found out I left her here, in the open, he would end me. Think, Ren, think…  _ “Send Sora Casterfo up tomorrow morning, to my room, with any supplies she’ll need.”

I hadn’t spoken to Sora in  _ months _ , but she was fine. If things weren’t fine, she would’ve been to see me by now. The only time she’ll come by is when her business starts running low, or she wants a temporary high. 

“As you wish, Commander."

I hold Rey in towards my chest to prevent her from falling, and her head curls into my body. She’s so weak that she can’t even wake up. They must’ve given her a sedative, but for what? Pain?

As I walk towards my room, I look down at the girl. She looks so dull, so lifeless. Was I blind to see this earlier, or has she looked like this always? 

The door is easy to open, as I use my mind to close it behind me. I tuck Rey into my bed, propping her head up in case she throws up, then walk towards where Darth Vader’s helmet sits.

I regain my position from earlier and close my eyes, allowing the Force to course through my veins and penetrate into my soul. I can call Snoke in the morning and update him.

The only thing to do now is meditate.


	5. The Caretaker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is from rey's pov again. also, as a quick disclaimer, i can only write eating disorders from my research and personal experiences. feeding tubes are not something i'm familiar with, and i'm not a medic, so this stuff is kinda being made up as i go. enjoy :)

_ “Just give me what I need to fix her…” Kylo’s voice rings out in my mind, echoing off the walls. I can’t open my eyes, I can’t see anything, but I feel his presence around me, close to his core. Fix me? Fix what? There’s nothing wrong with me.  _

_ “Kylo… what happened?” I ask, but I have no response. His usual red aura is much darker now, almost to the point of blackness. I call out again, but my mouth doesn’t open. What’s going on? _

I cough and sit up in a bed, an unfamiliar bed. My eyesight is blurry, and my throat feels swollen and thick like something is stuck in it. My eyesight clears, and I see Kylo Ren and a girl with blue skin and red hair in the doorway. What the  _ fuck  _ is going on?

I reach up to my throat, trying to clear it, and I grab what feels like a plastic tube, pulling on it slightly. 

“Rey, stop,” Kylo says, and my hands are torn away from my body by an unseeable force. 

I want to cry, but all I can do is choke on whatever is stuck inside of me.  _ Get out, get out, get out of my throat. _

The girl with blue skin walks over to me from the door. “Rey, my name is Sora. I’m your nurse. I need you to calm down for me, please, and I can explain everything.”

I look down at my body, which I now notice is in a… hospital gown? There is an IV in one of my arms. Did I need medical help? What for? I’m sure I got back to my room safely last night. I remember getting to the hallway, getting to the door, but that’s all. 

I try to slow my breathing and fight against the invisible chains my hands are in. 

The girl - Sora - sits down on the bed next to me. The bed is definitely not mine. The sheets are white, and the bed is way larger than mine. I glance up, and I see a mirror covering the entire ceiling. Is this Sora’s room? An infirmary room? Kylo’s room?

“Last night, you were found unconscious outside of your room. A medic brought you to the medic bay and when checking your vitals, we’ve found that you are severely underweight and malnourished. We’ve placed a nasogastric tube inside of you, it will help bring you back to a normal weight. Commander Ren has decided to nurse you in his room, against medical advice.” She glares back at him, where he stands beside the door. “I will help in any way I can, but your throat will be sore for a little bit, so I would suggest not talking. The tube can come out in a few days if you recover well enough. I’ll be back later tonight to change the dressing on you're wounds.” Sora finishes her monologue and gets up from the bed.

I turn my head to the side. I don’t want either of them to see the single tear that falls from my eyes. I’m not underweight; this is how everyone looks at home on Jakku. It’s common for people to give up their rations to the young, and I was fine.

I feel Sora leave the room, while my eyes are fixated on the wall of the bedroom - no, now I know it’s Kylo’s room. Before she leaves, she runs her hand across Kylo’s chest, and she murmurs “Call me if you need anything.”

I bite my lip.

“Stop doing that,” Kylo says, shutting the door behind Sora. “It’s a bad habit.”

_ Doesn’t affect you.  _ I want to say.

“Yeah, it does. It’s bothersome.” He replies. “Stop before I make you.”

_ How did he hear that? _

“Have you really forgotten how powerful I am?” Kylo says, crossing over to the bed. I can feel him on the opposite side, but I don’t turn my head. “The Dark Side gives way to so many more strengths, more than you could comprehend.”

_ Oh. Okay. _

“You should’ve told me you felt bad.” 

_ I don’t feel bad. I still don’t feel bad. There’s nothing wrong with me. _

“Really? Because now I have to feed you formula until you gain weight and monitor you like a child.” He says, growing irritated.

_ I don’t need your fucking help.  _

“Yeah, you kind of do.” He walks to the other side of the bed and I turn my head, still avoiding eye contact. “Look at me.” My head instantly turns, against my will. “Snoke isn’t going to hear about this. I don’t know what he’ll do, but you need to keep this a secret.”

_ Like I have a way to tell him. _

“Rey.” Kylo’s voice sounds strained like he’s scared. “He sees everything. He’s powerful. If this doesn’t stay between us, he’ll find out. I’ve already commanded Sora to wipe the system of your admittance to the medic bay last night, so there’s no trace there.”

I look at him. I wish I could say something, anything, but I can’t. It’s humiliating, no, degrading, to be in Kylo Ren’s room when he basically tortured me hours ago. His scar is bright red, almost like his aura, but I can’t tell how he feels. He’s not afraid - I’ve never seen him afraid, but he seems confused, unsure of what to expect.

“In my meditations, I’ve found a way to heal your wound.” He says.

_ What? _

“I’ve only done it once before, and it was on a much smaller scale, but I believe I can fix it,” Kylo says, placing his hand on my side. I shy away from his touch, feeling naked. His hand practically covers my entire rib cage. 

“Stop it.” He commands, and I immediately put my body back in the position it once was.

_ What the hell? Why did I do that? Don’t shimmy into him like he’s your fucking caretaker. Don’t be so stupid, Rey.  _

As much as I try to fight it, something compels me to stay in that position. He slowly lifts my dress up, but only enough to expose the wound on my side. My bottom half is still covered by the copious amounts of blankets placed on me.

“This makes me uncomfortable, too.” He says. “Don’t flatter yourself - I’m only doing this because I have to.”

As much as I dislike Kylo, he is the one person on this ship who I can slightly trust. He promised me my family, to train me to use the Force and to protect myself. His words slightly sting. I wasn’t as attractive as others, but it still hurts to hear things like that.

He slowly takes off the bandage from its location on my side, and I glance down at it. It pulls some of the skin off with it, but it’s nothing compared to the real pain I’ve been in. I think back to what Kylo said during our training session.  _ Push through the pain, it’s only an obstacle. _

He places his hand on my exposed flesh, and his hand covers it almost entirely, with only the discolored edges peaking out. “This won’t feel very comfortable. Brace yourself.”

He closes his eyes, and I’m met with a strange type of pain. It’s not like yesterday, when he placed the pressure of the Force on my head, or when I received the wound initially through his lightsaber in our fight. It’s not the worst pain I’ve ever felt, but it’s certainly bad.

I can sense the skin burning like it’s freezing off. I try to shy away from the touch, but I’m stuck in the position, probably because of Kylo. It hurts, it hurts. 

Then, for a split second, I can hear him.

_ Push through it, Rey. Give it up. Give the pain to me. _

That’s when I realize what he’s doing - he’s absorbing all of my pain into his body. I can sense grey waves flowing off of me and centering in the palm of his hand. He grimaces, and I can’t imagine how he feels. The grey turns into red, and when I look up at him, I see a drop of blood fall from his nose.

_ Kylo, your nose… _

Before I know it, he takes his hand off like he was touching a hot surface and rushes to the bathroom. I look down at my side, and where the wound once was, I see a faint handprint. My skin looks untouched other than that, and all of the pain I felt there is gone. I don’t need the bandages anymore.

My face feels wet, and I wonder if I’m crying. I feel a tear roll down my face and fall onto my shirt, but when I look down, it’s not water.

It’s a drop of blood.


	6. The Intervention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the likes! it makes me so happy :) this chapter is told from kylo's pov again, and it's pretty long, but i think it needed to be so that i could get all the info out there.

A few hours after I clean myself up and regain my composure, I call Sora to give Rey the formula. I watch as she pushes the liquid into the syringe and into wherever the hell the tube leads to. I can sense Rey’s discomfort, and I start to actually feel bad for her. 

The strong girl she was, who put up such a big fight, now reduced to a bed where she has to have her food liquified and fed to her.

I feel powerful from the task I did earlier. Force healing is something that only people strong with the Dark Side can do, and performing it on a scale like Rey’s wound is something to be proud of. The blood from my nose just means that it was Dark Force and that it was an intense process. Yeah, it definitely hurt, but the accomplishment of the task is enough to make up for it. Besides, it’s only physical pain.

Rey is obviously upset after Sora finishes feeding her, and she turns on to her side. I can tell she wants to cry, so I direct my attention to Sora and let Rey have her personal moment.

“So, what are you doing tonight?” Sora asks as if she didn’t just force-feed the girl in my bed. “There is a party in Cubic V, around the whole hall. You should come.” 

She takes a couple of steps towards where I lean against the wall and runs a blue finger from my collar bone to the tip of my belt. My breath hitches. “I’ll be there.” She adds.

I bite my lip. It’s been what feels like an eternity since I’ve touched Sora, but training has been too strenuous lately, and with running all over the edges of the galaxy for Snoke, I’ve had little time to relax with her. 

“I’ll see you later tonight then,” I reply, and Sora leaves the room with a smirk.

I turn back to Rey, but she’s already asleep on her side. Sora informed me that she’d be extremely tired after feeding, so I let her rest. Today is the only day we can halt her training, though. Every other day needs to be spent training her in the Dark Side. 

I change from my robes into a casual outfit. Besides Sora, there are not many people who know my real identity on the Finalizer. Anytime I leave the room and I have to give presentations, or anything orderly, I wear the mask. However, without my mask on, no one knows who I am. Sora, Hux, Snoke… that’s about everyone on the ship who knows what I look like without the mask. 

Oh - and Rey.

I grab a piece of paper from my bedside table and scribble a quick note, telling her to use the metal circle to call me if needed. A part of me just wants to leave her here without a note - she should know how to take care of herself, and I shouldn’t have to watch after her every single minute - but when I look at her, fragile and small, a part of me feels bad.

I need to erase that part. I shouldn’t care at all about her, yet her strength in the Force is something which makes her dwell on my mind more than I’d like to admit. 

That’s all it is, though. I refuse to let my mind even venture into a part where I could have any emotion at all to her. She’s just a stupid girl, and once I bring her to Snoke for whatever he needs her for, I won’t have to think about her again.

I shut the door quietly behind me, making my way to where Sora said the party would be. I can sense all of the emotions and thrills of people - some getting drunk, getting high, or fucked - from a couple of Cubics away. Years ago, I mastered the practice of turning off Force vibrations from others, and that’s precisely what I do now.

When I enter the room, there must be a hundred people packed inside, and more outside the doors. It’s a dark blue, with strobe lights reaching across the room. There are several people from the command room who I recognize - Lena, who works at the control panel; Todoro, the flight command head; and a couple of others. 

In the middle of the room is an elevated platform, like the one I eat off of in the training room, with no base legs to hold it up. There are three poles on it, and Sora is on the middle one like she’s the main attraction.

She sees me and instantly gets down. She’s wearing a one-piece, but her torso is completely exposed except for a piece of fabric on each side of her body connecting the otherwise separate parts. The girl on her left is green, and her body is completely naked. She hangs over the side of the platform and beckons to me, but Sora laughs and grabs my hand instead, setting me down on one of the couches on the outskirts of the room.

“You came,” She says, hand resting on my lower torso. I lean my head back as she trails her other hand up and down my neck, eliciting a soft sigh from me. 

“I thought we said we weren’t going to do this again,” I tell her, feeling her lips replace her hands on my neck. 

“I said we could under certain situations.” She smirks and looks into my eyes. “This is just the foreplay; I have someone waiting for you.”

Sora whips around so her body is across mine and so that she is sitting on my lap. She points her finger to a smaller pink girl in the corner and brings her lips to my ear. “I told her about how good you fucked me the first time, and she wants to try.” 

The small pink girl waves at me. She’s maybe a foot shorter than me, wearing a black bikini that barely covers her breasts. Her hair is black too, and she slowly walks over to where Sora and I sit. 

“What do you think?” Sora whispers in my ear and she gets off of my lap and the other girl takes her place.

“Perfect,” I say, smiling at the girl as she straddles me.

Sora is definitely my number one choice, but this will do fine, too.

The girl starts grinding on me, and I close my eyes and kiss her lips, feeling myself growing harder as I think about how soft she feels. As her hand moves through my hair and tugs it, I briefly let down my guards and focus on how she feels.

 _More, more, more…_ The words echo in her mind. Kind of dull and boring, but whatever.

We’re not the only ones on the couch. There are other people, just as sleazy and slutty as the two of us. I can feel what they are all thinking, all of the lust and want and need seeping into my skin like a drug. It feels so good, my emotions running on the high of those around me.

The girl moves to where she can reach my neck, and starts sucking on the skin right under my chin, still grinding against my dick. I buck my hips up to meet hers, running my hands up and down her back until they settle at the small dip in her back. I move her hips to meet my thrusts, and I can feel her becoming needy.

I open my eyes, and suddenly the girl isn’t there anymore, and she’s replaced with… Rey?

She brings her hands to the back of my neck and I’m in awe of her body. Her long brown hair falls over her shoulders in little rivers, and her face is puckered into a blissful look. She looks into my eyes, and says, “I need you. Please, _Kylo, fuck me_.”

I snap out of whatever daze I’m in and push the girl off of me, who now looks like her normal self. 

“What the _fuck_ , dude?” She says, and I want to apologize, but I feel like my skin is on fire. 

I walk to the front of the room, passing Sora on the way out, who looks extremely confused, but I can’t think about her. I can’t think about anything except the fact that I imagined _Rey_ on top of me, grinding on my cock, and begging to be fucked.

My skin feels hot and itchy even when I leave the room. Bad trip? Maybe I let my guards down too much and I absorbed some of the toxicity of alcohol and drugs from others? No, that’s stupid. I thought of her - there’s no way around it.

I feel like throwing up, I feel sick to my stomach. This isn’t okay. Slip of the mind? Bad use of the Force?

I make my way to the end of the hallway and out to the front of Cubic V, and that’s when I double over in pain. It feels as if a thousand pounds of water is crushing my skull, seeping into my body, and clouding my vision. My ears start ringing, and my jaw pops, and then a voice rings out in my head, clear as day -

_Kylo, help me!_

It’s Rey. She’s in trouble. I run as fast as I can back towards my room, and the usual twenty-minute walk is made in less than ten. After I heard her voice, all of the pain went away, and all I could think about was her.

I shove the door open, hard enough to almost break it, and I see her, off of the bed, and on the ground. She ripped the tube out of her mouth and threw up everywhere, and it looks like blood mixed with whatever formula Sora gave her earlier. She’s crying, and I can _feel_ her pain. She looks at me and her eyes are filled with tears.

“Get _out!_ ” She screams, taking the tube and throwing it at me. I step to the side and barely miss it. “Get the fuck out! I don’t want you here!”

“God damn it Rey, calm down,” I say, although I am bewildered myself. She is an absolute mess, I’ve never seen anyone so broken and so hurt in my life. 

I take a few steps closer to her, and she backs away across the floor, hospital gown sliding into the vomit and blood mixture. She doesn’t seem to notice or care though; she’s in hysterics, screaming and crying and coughing all at once.

“Rey, stop,” I say. How the fuck do I fix this? What’s wrong with her? I shouldn’t have left her alone, it was a stupid decision. 

After she takes a deep breath and proceeds to scream again, all sanity is lost and I bend down to her level and scream, too. It’s almost a match between both of us - who can do it longer?

Rey stops screaming and crying, taking deep breaths and cowering on the side of the bed. I look down at everything, at the huge mess on my floor, and take a deep breath with her. I sit on the floor near the bed, careful to avoid the mixture. 

“I left a note on the side of the bed.” I break the silence. “What happened?”

When she speaks, her voice is completely hoarse. “When I woke up, I wanted to go back to my room, but I couldn’t stand up on my own. I tried really hard, but when I sat up, I couldn’t stop myself from puking.” She sniffles, and I sense that she is getting overwhelmed again.

“Hey,” I stop her from trying to talk. “Just think about it, okay? And I’ll try to send something back.”

I feel foreign in my own body, hearing those words come out of my mouth. What the hell was I saying? I wasn’t supposed to care about her, she’s a girl that literally ruined my room.

She looks at me in the eyes before sending her thoughts to me, like she’s choosing what to say.

_I didn’t want to throw up on the bed, so I tried to make it to the toilet, but I fell. I couldn’t stop the vomit, so I ripped out the tube. I’ll clean it up in a bit, just please leave me alone._

“No, I’m not going to leave you alone,” I say, still holding eye contact with her. Her eyes are puffy. “We can see how well that turned out last time.”

She doesn’t laugh, but I can sense that she is amused.

Think, Kylo, think. Who could I call to fix this? Sora is probably fucking someone, no one else really knows who Rey is besides that stupid doctor from yesterday, but it would be pointless to try to contact him.

I feel a memory flow to the front of my mind, and I see an image of my mother, holding my head. It was from the sickness that was going around, and I had thrown up everywhere. I was young, only a few years old, and she put me in the bathtub, washing the vomit from my hair and body. 

I can do that. I can help her. I try not to think about the memory of my mom, or how I shouldn’t be helping her, but when I look at Rey, I feel so much pain for her - pain that I haven’t felt for years. I can fix her, just for tonight, then I’ll deal with all of these emotions later.

I walk over to the bathroom and plug the drain, turning the water on and checking the temperature. 

_Kylo, what are you doing?_

“You need to take a bath,” I say, then try to soften my tone. I really don’t want to deal with screaming and crying again. “This will help you feel better.”

_I don’t want you to see me naked._

“I’ll leave when you get in and when you get out. I won’t look.” I respond, walking over to where she is against the bed. I pick her up, trying to ignore the stench of the mixture that covers her chest and the edge of her gown. I sit her on the edge of the bath.

 _Don’t fall,_ I think, but decide against better judgment to say it.

She smiles a tiny bit. “I’ll try not to.”

My head whips up. _You could hear that?_

 _Yes,_ she responds, and I decide not to inquire further. This is too much to deal with within one day, so I’ll just hope that she couldn’t read my thoughts earlier when I was at the party.

“Okay, I’ll go so you can get in the bath. Just let me know when you’re done.” I say, then grab a towel from the closet and shut the door behind me. I clean up the vomit on the floor, then spray it with some cleaner I found in the closet. It’s antiseptic for wounds, but it takes the stench away, so it works fine for the task at hand.

I toss the towel in the trash, claiming it as unsalvageable. 

_Okay, I’m ready._ Rey says, and I feel her uneasiness.

I open the door to the bathroom and sit down beside the bathtub. The water goes up to her shoulders, so I don’t see anything beneath it since it’s clouded with soap. I bunch the hospital dress up and throw it into the garbage bin.

“You could’ve used the metal circle to call me, you know,” I say absentmindedly. 

“I heard you talking to Sora earlier.” She responds. “And I didn’t want to call you.”

I want to tell her about how I heard her voice earlier, and I want to ask her about how she created all of the pressure, but I cannot bring myself to ask at this point. This is a conversation for tomorrow.

“What’s a conversation for tomorrow?” Rey asks, and I snap my head up to look at her again.

“Can you just selectively hear what I’m thinking?” I say, rather rudely. She shrinks into the water like she’s done something wrong.

_No._

“Then how can you hear me?”

_Well, how can you hear me? I can tell when you’re talking to me, or angry at me, but not always. I can’t hear you most of the time, actually._

“I’ve been trained in the Force for many years, and it’s something that I can’t control. You’re either born with it like you’re born sensitive to the Force, or you’re not.”

She doesn’t say anything - not that I can hear or sense, at least.

“It’s something you get from the Dark Side of the Force, but it’s easy to let it control you, so I’d advise you to shut everything out except one or two people,” I say when she doesn’t respond. “I can teach you how if you want.” 

She smiles, and I stand up, making sure to keep my eyes off of the water. “I’m gonna go so you can get out, then you can go to bed.”

I don’t see it, but I can feel her agree, and I leave. I change out of my clothes and sit on the bed, messing with my hands until she opens the door. When I look up, I see her wrapped in a towel. 

“Hey, um, I don’t have any clothes.” She stutters.

Oh. Oops. 

I turn and grab a t-shirt and sweatpants from the drawers beneath my bed, but instead of throwing them at her, I send it to her with the Force, letting it levitate mid-air until she grabs it. 

_Thank you_. She says, and when she comes back out, both of them completely dwarf her. Rey nervously picks at her cuticles, then says, “Where do you want me to sleep?”

I pat the bed. “Here. Don’t worry, I slept on the floor last night.” I can tell she’s uncomfortable, but from what I don’t know.

“You don’t have to do that. I can go back to my room -”

“No,” I cut her off. “You have to stay here. I’ll explain tomorrow. Just go ahead and lay down.”

She walks to the other side of the bed and slowly climbs in, and I grab a pillow and sit down on the floor. 

_Wait, Kylo. You can sleep up here. I don’t mind._

I sit up. _Are you sure?_

She nods her head, and I crawl into the bed. She takes up so much less room than me, she’s a fraction of the mass that I am. I turn the light off, making sure that I’m far enough over on the bed to leave space in the middle, but within minutes I can tell that she is shivering.

 _What’s wrong?_ I ask her.

 _Nothing._ She tries to brush off the question. _It’s just cold._

She’s wrapped in my comforter and the two blankets from the hospital, but I can tell that she’s still radiating coldness. I remember faintly what Sora said, about this happening because of the weight issue.

Without thinking about it, I turn over and close the distance between us, wrapping an arm around her small body.

_Kylo, what are you doing?_

“I don’t have any other blankets,” I say. “We won’t talk about it tomorrow. Just go to sleep.”

Slowly, Rey stops shivering, and her breath becomes slower and more shallow. I try to sleep as well, but I can’t get certain thoughts out of my head.

_Fuck. Snoke is going to kill me._


	7. The Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! this is in rey's pov, and i think longer chapters are my thing now. world building off of the star wars universe is so much fun, especially when there is barely anything about the sith. i hope you enjoy! xx

When I wake up, it is only because of the absence of heat. Without turning over, I can sense that Kylo is talking to someone. It must be Sora, here to give me another bit of formula. He must be telling her how I ripped it out during my episode yesterday…

Oh  _ shit.  _ Yesterday’s events course through my mind, and I’m reminded of how horribly I felt. I remember throwing up on Kylo’s floor, but not for the reason I told him - it was because I was overwhelmed with the fact that I was able to hear his thoughts. 

It wasn’t scary at all. The first time I heard him was yesterday, and it’s not like I expected it. I didn’t think it would happen involuntarily, or that I could only hear him if I really concentrated or if he was projecting. I don’t even think he realized he was projecting.

I couldn’t see where he was yesterday, but I could feel his blood warming as he thought of me, then I was sure I could hear his thoughts whenever his heart stopped beating momentarily, and I could hear his voice piercing through my mind like starcraft.

I hear Kylo close the door, and I sit up in bed, still feeling nauseous about feeling forced to eat. Kylo walks to the bed but doesn’t sit down. He tosses a bag of pills at me, and I catch it.

“What is this?” I inquire. 

“Sora expected you to resist treatment.” He responds coldly, and the connection I feel like we built yesterday has gone completely. “These are supplemental pills. Each one will distribute about five pounds evenly to your body. There’s five in there.”

He pauses for a second. “She went through a lot of trouble to get these. Take one a day for the next five days.” He grabs a cup from under the dresser and takes it to the bathroom sink, filling it with water.

“Here.” He offers it to me. “Take one and drink it.” 

I swallow hard. I feel anxious. Adding weight like this - it’s not healthy.

“You weren’t exactly healthy when we found you,” Kylo says, angering me slightly at the fact that he is reading my thoughts without my permission. “You wasted enough time yesterday. Take the pill now, and get ready. We have the training to do.”

He turns around and walks to the bathroom, I’m assuming to get dressed. I look at the pill cautiously, then decide I need to take it to avoid any problems. I stash the pills on Kylo’s bedside table, then reach in the dresser drawers below it to find something to wear.

All of my belongings sit in the bottom drawer - the clothes I came here with, the clothes I received from the Finalizer, the blaster, the metal circle, and the note.  _ Fuck, what if he read it? _

I quickly push the thoughts from my mind - I don’t want him to read them again. I toss on a shirt and get ready as fast I can, and leave the room before Kylo exits the bathroom. I don’t exactly know how to get to the training room from here, but it beat walking anywhere with Kylo, and I needed some time alone to process how I feel.

I scoff to myself. I can’t even do that anymore, not when he’s going to consistently read my thoughts. 

I find myself following an imaginary path as if my feet know the way to the training room but my mind does not. Within minutes, I reach it, and I push the door open.

I walk towards the window, looking through it. I can no longer see the Kuat system. Wherever Snoke’s ship is, it must be in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Maybe on the Outer Systems? 

The door opens with a loud sound, and I jump, then try to regain my composure. It’s Kylo, dressed in his robes and mask. 

“You should have told me where you were going.” He says, voice crackled by the helmet. 

“I thought you could read my thoughts,” I say, crossing my arms in front of him. 

He shuts the door and locks it behind him, then he takes off his mask. I wonder what he is so afraid of since he doesn’t go anywhere without the mask.

“I don’t have time for this, Rey.” He says, and he stretches both of his hands out. As if on an imaginary line, two cushions come from the corners of the room and follow his hands until they sit in the middle of the floor. 

He sits on one, then motions to the other, indicating for me to sit there. 

“What are we doing today?” I ask.

“We’re going to retrieve a memory.” He says, crossing his legs. Instinctively, I cross my own as well, and I place my hands in the position on my knees, mirroring his stance.

“What kind?” I ask, feeling uneasy. I don’t like where this is going.

He swallows, and he seems… nervous, maybe? I’m not sure that it is even an emotion for Kylo Ren to possess. Last night, he was kind to me, angry at me, and everything in between. But nowhere in there did I see nervousness across his face.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that fear leads to the Dark Side of the Force,” Kylo asks, and I nod my head before he continues. “We are going to find what you fear the most in this world.”

“No,” I say instantly. “I’m not doing it.”

“Fine.” He snaps. “If you’re going to be so fucking difficult, why did you even get on this ship? You said you wanted to find your parents, but everything you've done in the past three days you’ve been here has shown exactly the opposite.”

My hands ball into fists. “Whatever. Just tell me what I need to do.”

Kylo smiles like he’s won an argument. I feel like puking again.

“Close your eyes.” He commands, and I do and become faced with the void. “You’re powerful with the Force, Rey, but you need to learn how to manipulate it. Finding your fear is going to accomplish this. Think of what you need the most in your life, and fixate on it. I’ll meet you there.”

When Kylo pauses, I try to open my eyes, but they only open and mirror the void. It’s dark, black, and I can’t see anything. “Kylo?” I call out, and my voice echoes around me, bouncing off of imaginary walls. Is this my fear? Darkness? No, I’ve never been afraid of the dark.

I look down and my body slowly reappears around me, and I take a few steps forward, and it feels like I’m walking on air.

“Rey?” A voice calls out behind me, and I spin around to face it.

“Leia!” I cry out, and I run towards her, hugging her with all of my strength. She’s shorter than me, and her hair is up in buns. She returns the embrace, but I step back. “I’m so sorry I didn’t come back. Please tell Finn I’m sorry, I had to -”

“I know, Rey.” She says, and she offers me a smile. “I understand. He told you he could find your parents, did he?”

I nod my head, tears welling up in my eyes again. “Yes. You must understand: I have to find out where I belong. I need to find them. I’m so sorry I betrayed you.”

She brings me into her arms again as I start to cry. “Is everyone okay? Did everyone make it back from Starkiller Base?”

“Yes, no casualties.” Another voice says, and I turn around and face Finn.

I run towards him, and he squeezes me tight when I jump into his arms. “Finn, it’s so good to see you. I wrote a note, I was going to send it, but so much has happened here lately. I don’t know how to get it to you safely.”

“It’s okay.” He smiles at me, and I tear up even more. “I understand. You told me what you needed from the beginning, and I accept that.”

“Oh, thank you,” I say, tears streaming from my eyes in happiness. I missed them so much, and I was so happy to know they are both alive and okay. “Leia-” I start and turn around, but she isn’t behind me anymore. I turn back to ask Finn, but he is gone, too.

I spin around, calling both of their names. I put my hands over my face and wipe the tears.  _ Fuck, Rey. You have to get a hold of yourself. It’s not real. _

When I move my hands from my eyes, it’s bright, extremely bright. My eyes readjust, and I’m faced with a familiar place.  _ Jakku. _

The sand stretches as far as I can see, and I bend down to touch it. I never thought I would miss this cursed desert, but I do. I hear a child scream behind me, and I turn to face the voice.

My breath hitches.

It’s me.

The child runs towards its parents -  _ my  _ parents, and they pick her up and swing her into their arms.

“Mom,” I call out, stretching a hand to where they are. I can’t see their faces, but I know it’s them. She doesn’t seem to hear me, so I yell louder. “Mom! Dad!”

I rush towards them, and I’m hit in the face by an imaginary wall, knocking me down into the sand. I get back up quickly, hitting my hands on the wall, trying to knock it down. I scream their names louder and louder, praying to whatever force is listening that they will hear me. I hit the wall harder and harder until I can see blood on my hands. I fall into the sand, defeated, and I scream.

Then, the pain starts. It boils into my skin, penetrating my brain, and blurring my eyes. The ringing increases louder and louder until I hear it -

“Rey,” Kylo’s voice calls out, echoing off the walls of the void. When my vision clears, it’s just me and him, alone in the black abyss. He stands in front of me, and he extends a hand to where I lie crouched on the ground.

“Bring them back,” I say quietly, refusing to take it.

“You know I can’t do that,” He replies. “It’s not real.”

I stand up, pushing his hands away, and I walk so close to his face that we’re almost touching. “Bring them back!” I scream again, and I push his chest. He stumbles backward, then regains his composure.

“Acceptance,” He says as I walk towards him, hands still in fists. “That’s what you want most in your life.” I reach him and I hit his chest again, and he lets me until he pushes me back. He cheats, though - he uses the Force, and I’m pushed about twenty feet from him.

“You want it from everyone - Finn, Leia,” He says, pacing slowly. “You even want it from your parents, and you don’t even know who they are.”

I run towards him, wanting to push him, to fight him, to make him  _ hurt _ . 

“Think about it, Rey,” He says, and he reaches a hand out towards me. It pushes me back, and I feel like I’ve been punched. I fall to the ground. “They didn’t want you. They left you for a reason.”

“Fuck you!” I scream, feeling a pressure rise in my chest. This time, the pressure isn’t on me, though; I am creating it. I can sense grey rolling off of my body, centering in my chest, growing larger and larger.

“You were nothing,” Kylo says, and he laughs. “You think they’re gonna come back for you? They’re probably dead.”

In the span of a few short moments, I’m able to wake up from whatever Force daze I was in, and I see that I am suspended in the air across from Kylo. He falls from the cushion, and he starts to open his mouth, but before he can say anything my fist connects with his face.

“Rey, wait, I -” I hit him again, and again, and then he flies backward.

“You know nothing about them!” I shout. I stretch a hand out and Kylo hits the wall. All of the grey starts to pour out of me like an oscillating wave. “They loved me! They fucking care about me!”

I look to where his helmet is, imagine it hitting Kylo’s face, and then I send it flying in the same direction. He ducks and the helmet crashes into the wall.

“Rey, stop!” He yells. He holds a hand out towards one of the cushioned chairs and it hits me in the side. I wince from the impact, and it temporarily slows me down. 

I try to push the chair off of me, but all of the built-up pressure in my chest has died down. There’s nothing left for me to exert. Kylo walks over to me, and I am blind with rage.

“You bastard! You fucking bastard!” I scream out, unable to move from the weight of the chair. I’m stuck, and I’m in pain, but it’s not physical. I long for the power I had mere seconds ago, the power where I could toss him into the wall. “I hate you! I-”

My voice catches in my throat as Kylo stretches a hand out to me. I can’t breathe, and it registers what he is doing - he’s choking me. I grasp at my throat, trying to pry the invisible hands off of me, but I can’t do it. He’s too strong.

“I’ll stop when you calm down.” He says, and I frantically shake my head. He alleviates the pressure, and I gasp for air. He turns and runs to the wall, pressing the button which brought us towels the first day. A droid comes in, giving him water and more towels, and he dismisses it.

“Here,” He offers the water to me. I hesitantly take it, gulping it down to soothe the burning in my throat, and he sits beside me. “I didn’t mean the things I said. I’m sorry.”

I look at him, bewildered and confused, but he stares straight ahead at his hands. “This is the way of the Dark Side. You must bring what you want the most; often, it’s what you fear the most as well. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, hatred leads to the Dark Side, and the Dark Side leads you to power. You have to go through them all to get where you want to be.”

I don’t say anything in response. Did he apologize? The fuck am I supposed to do, accept it?

“Snoke did the same thing to me when we were training,” Kylo says, his voice much softer than before. “It’s a Sith tactic. While I could see what you want and fear the most, you can also see what those are for me.”

It takes a second for the words to register. “Leia?” I inquire, and he doesn’t say anything. “Your mother.”

He looks at me, and his eyes convey an emotion I can’t describe. It’s want, fear, longing, pain. It’s the eyes of a boy who was taken from his mother too soon. 

“We’re not so different, then,” I say. He doesn’t respond, but I can feel him agree with me. I offer him the water, and he takes a couple of drinks of it.

“You did well,” He finally says. He takes off his gloves, and I see blood covering his hands in the way it covers mine. 

_ Why?  _ I ask.

_ I’m not sure.  _ He responds.

I take one towel, and he takes the other, and we clean our hands of the blood.

_ Come on,  _ Kylo stands up and reaches a hand out. I take it.  _ There might be more information in the Sith Scrolls. _


	8. The Awakening

The room that holds the Sith Scrolls is in the same hall as Kylo’s room. It’s a couple of doors down, and as we walk there, I want to ask why he is allowing me to come with him. He was so resistant to me merely days ago, and now he is inviting me into a private room meant only for high ranking Dark Side users. It feels strange seeing Kylo so vulnerable like this - especially since I know about Leia now. I wonder if Snoke knows.

When he opens the door, there is a hiss and a puff of air that blows out.

“The Scrolls were kept on Exegol until a few millennia ago. Snoke claims that Exegol is dank and wet, so the Scrolls must be kept in this room. If they don’t, the pages will start to ruin.” Kylo informs me without me having to ask.

It’s a small, circular room with a couple of bookshelves filled with dark and decaying texts. He looks around as if he doesn’t know which one to pick.

“Rey -” He says, and I turn to him. “Which one is calling to you?”

I turn back towards the shelves and run my fingers across the spines of the books. They’re not labeled, so I have no idea what they contain. I close my eyes, letting the cold seep into my skin, and I take a deep breath.

I walk through the shelves without opening my eyes, letting the Force guide me by showing me a grey trail. Suddenly, the trail stops, and my hand shoots out to pick a book. It’s small, and if the Force hadn’t shown it to me, I wouldn’t have even known it was there. 

“Jaguada,” Kylo says. “That’s where this book was written.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“I feel it,” He responds, and he sits down in the midst of the bookshelves. I follow suit.

I’m nervous to open the book. I’m not sure what we’re looking for - Kylo said that Force Bonds are uncommon and that he’s never heard of one in thousands of years. Since he is also keeping it a secret from Snoke, it makes the contents even more suspicious.

I open it and all of the lights in the room burn out, letting darkness fall upon Kylo and me. I sharply inhale, and Kylo notices. He brings his hand out in front of us, closes his eyes, and concentrates. I can feel the waves rolling off of his body and into his hand, and then there is a red light illuminating the room. 

I want to do that.

“I’ll teach you,” He smirks briefly, then returns to his usual demeanor. “One of the benefits to the Dark Side. A Jedi would never be able to do something like this without tapping out of the Light.”

The words are covered in an unfamiliar text - something I’ve never seen before. 

“What does it say?” I ask, and Kylo furrows his brow in concentration.

“It’s written in the dead language of the Korriban. I only know a little bit of it.” He says. He runs his hands across the printed words, turning page after page until he can read something.

“ _ Tave qo iv tave tsis kash midwan - sis comes su pyktis, sh, ty. _ “ He says. “The way of the Sith - power, strength, passion.”

I glance over his shoulder, where his fingers touch the page. “Ir geisti.” I read out loud.

“Lust.” Kylo translates. “It’s all broken… I can’t read very much of it.” He turns the pages again and again, and they become stickier as we dive further into the book. The pages are coated with a dark red substance, making them cling onto the adjacent pages.

We get to the middle of the book, and all of the pages are covered in it.

Its blood.

Kylo quickly flips through the rest of the book, looking for any pages that aren’t completely covered. He stops at the last one.

“Tave geisti iv two sulig salini kash gana kia bend. Tikazi two lyteti sis.” Kylo murmurs quietly. “The lust can penetrate through all forms… anything that comes in its way. These bonds are formed once in a millennium…” He trails off. “The two Sith… kuris dalis zo… force bond… rysys buti iv tave plejada.”

He isn’t able to read the rest of it. At the bottom of the last page is a paragraph, seared into the book by fire. I point at it, and he looks into my eyes.

“This one’s not in Korriban. It’s written in Sith.” Kylo informs me, then says without missing a beat: “ _ Nwûl tash. Dzwol shâsotkun. Shâsotjontû châtsatul nu tyûk. Tyûkjontû châtsatul nu midwan. Midwanjontû châtsatul nu asha. Ashajontû kotswinot itsu nuyak. Wonoksh Qyâsik nun.” _

I feel my body shut down and my eyes glaze over. I can’t move. My mind tells me to panic, to scream, to do anything. I open my mouth and translate it. “ _ Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.” _

I stand up, breathing hard. The flame from Kylo’s hand burns out and he shuts the book.

“What was that?” I ask, bewildered, heart beating fast. How did I know that? Why couldn’t I stop myself from saying it?

“The Code.” Kylo puts the book on the shelf where we found it and cautiously looks into my eyes. “Every Sith is required to know it.”

“I’m not one, though,” I say, and my breathing increases.

“If you can read it, it means -”

My ears start to ring.  _ It means you have Sith blood.  _

“That’s not right,” I say, voice becoming louder. “That can’t be right. My parents weren’t… they weren’t that. I know they weren’t.”

“The last generation of blood Sith died two generations ago,” Kylo says. “You must come from an extended bloodline.”

I feel dizzy like I’m going to pass out. Is that why we have our connection? Because deep down, in my blood, I am the pure embodiment of evil?

“Rey, you have to calm down.” He says, and I crouch down low to the ground, trying to focus on anything but the sickness in my stomach. I want to cut the evil out of me, I want to be free of it. This isn’t who I was meant to be.

Kylo’s thoughts start to penetrate my ears, and I know that he doesn’t mean to but they are too loud to hide.  _ This must be why Snoke wants her. He wants to revitalize the bloodline, to create a new generation. _

I stand up and run out of the door. I hear him call after me, but I block it out. I can’t think. My body feels hot, my eyes cloud with tears. This isn’t who I was supposed to be. I’ve heard that the blood Sith are full of hatred, powerful for greed. Those who are trained in their footsteps hold as much power as them, but will never be as evil. 

I don’t know where I’m running to, but I know I can’t stop.

All my life, I have strived to look towards the past and find where I’ve come from. Now, I can’t do anything except run from it.

I don't know how long I run, but it feels like an hour. However, I know the ship definitely isn’t long enough for me to do that. I pass stormtroopers, droids, and officials as I’m running - they all look at me strangely, but I don’t stop for them. When I have expelled all of the power I have, I crouch down and finally take in my surroundings. 

I’m in a white hallway that stretches as far as I can see, tucked into a little corner on the side of it. I slow my breathing down and try to focus on something, on anything. My body feels numb and cold like it has been turned into something else. I close my eyes again, and I fall into the void.

“Rey,” A voice calls out my name. I look into the abyss and see a slim female figure with a blurred face - my mother. She walks towards me slowly, and my breathing escalates once again.

“Why did you leave me?” I yell towards her. I can’t see her face, but I can tell she is hurt by my words. “Is this why?”

“No,” She answers, finally reaching my body. Hot tears roll down my face and she stretches an arm out to wipe them away. When her fingers make contact with my skin, it almost feels like she’s really there and not just a figure I’ve conjured. Almost. “We knew you could feel the Force since you were a child, and we did everything we could to protect you. That’s why we had to leave - so your lineage wasn’t discovered.”

“I needed you!” I scream, flinching from her touch. “Where were you when it was freezing on Jakku and I was so cold my body ached? Where were you when I was sold from place to place? Where were you when people tried to hurt me when I was just a child? Where were you when I was starving every single fucking night?”

“Rey, I-”

“No! You don’t get to say anything to me!” I interrupt, my voice dripping with sorrow and turning into a sob. It wracks my body until I am shaking. “I needed my mom to protect me, and you left me like I was trash.”

She bends down and wraps her arms around me, squeezing me. Even though I know it’s not real, I still lean into the touch.

“When we learned of the existence of your grandfather, we knew we had to hide you.” She says. “We needed to get away and bring whatever people he sent after you with us. It was never the plan to not return back for you. He can still feel your presence, Rey. You’re too powerful.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I say. “Everything hurts. I abandoned Finn, Leia, and all of the others, and now I’m stuck on this godforsaken ship with someone who wanted me dead a month ago.” 

She pulls back and I can feel her eyes on me. “You know what to do, Rey. You’ve always known. You are so strong, you’re the child of two Sith. There is nothing in this galaxy more powerful than you.”

“Mom,” I reach up to touch her face. “Where are you? Please let me see. I can’t do this without you.”

“Of course you can.” She says, and I can feel her smile. “You’ve been alone for years - you are a fighter. Do not let them treat you like you are weak. Fulfill your destiny.”

“What destiny? I don’t understand.” I say.

“Listen to your soul.” She says, and she touches my cheek one last time before standing up. “Let him guide you in the ways of the Force.”

“Mom, wait,” I grab her hand as she turns to leave. “Please don’t leave me again.”

“My child,” She says, then starts to fade away. “I love you.”

I open my eyes as the void disappears completely, and I’m stuck looking at the white halls again.  _ Let him guide you.  _ The words echo in my ears.

I wipe the tears from my eyes. I know what I have to do.

_ Kylo.  _ I project as loud as I can, hoping he can hear me. No, he will hear me. I’m sure of it.

_ Rey. Where are you? _ He responds instantly.  _ I can’t see your location. _

_ I don’t know. It’s a white hallway, it’s long. I can’t walk back right now. I won’t make it. _

It’s silent for a moment.  _ The cells. I’m coming now.  _

I feel our connection end, like the end of a transmission. Kylo arrives within minutes, taking off his mask and tossing it to the side as he drops in front of me.

“Are you okay? What happened?” He asks, concern leaking into his voice. He cares; I can feel it.

“I talked to her,” I say. “To my mother. She’s alive.”

He furrows his brow. “What did she say?”

I shake my head.  _ Not here. _

He nods his head and puts his mask back on. I can’t stand up - I feel too weak. I haven’t taken another pill yet. Maybe that’s why I feel like this. He bends down and hooks an arm beneath my shoulder and an arm beneath my knees, cradling me into his chest. I fit perfectly, like a missing puzzle piece.

As he carries me back to the room, I look up at him and think about what my mother said. I can sense other eyes on us.

_ Look, it’s Kylo Ren.  _ Their voices merge together in my head.  _ He’s carrying the traitor girl.  _

I push all of the thoughts outside my head and focus on the mask of Kylo. When he gets to the room, he sits on the bed. I take another pill and he takes off his helmet, sitting on the bed across from me.

“Alright,” I say, clearing my throat. “Let’s talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from this point out, when i refer to sith, it will be sith who have been trained. when i mean the sith race, i'll use "blood sith"


	9. The Discussion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again for the likes and comments :) this is from rey's pov. it's pretty short and it's kinda a filler chapter, but a lot of plot will happen in the next one. enjoy xx

I explain the vision I had of my mother to Kylo, and he listens intently. It’s the first time we’ve had a conversation this personal. 

“Let him guide you,” He repeats. “What do you think she’s talking about?”

“I think it’s about you. It must have something to do with our Force connection.” I respond. “And what about the ‘fulfilling your destiny’ part? Have you heard anything like that?”

“It might have something to do with the Sith Scroll that you were led to.” Kylo guesses. “But I can’t read it, and you won’t be able to read anything except for the Code.”

We sit in silence for a minute. “So what are we going to do?”

He looks at me, confused. “We’re still going to Snoke.” My heart drops into my stomach. He’s going to turn me in to Snoke. My mother said that people would come after me; that must be who she was talking about. “But he’s not going to take you. He’s never mentioned anything about you being a Sith. I don’t believe he knows.”

“What if he tries?”

Kylo looks into my eyes.  _ He won’t take you. _

He gets up and takes out sweatpants and a t-shirt from the dresser, and I’m puzzled. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“Rey, look at the clock.” He says and laughs. This is the first time I’ve heard him laugh without hatred involved in it. It’s nice. “It’s time for sleep.”

_ Oh. Oops. _

I dress in my own nighttime attire and crawl into the bed, tucking myself in. Kylo slides in beside me, keeping our distance, as usual. I turn onto my side, facing the wall. I briefly think about how I’ll be able to figure out what my mom meant earlier. If one had asked me months ago what I thought about everything - the Force, the First Order, Sith, Jedi, all of it - I would’ve said I don’t believe in it. I still don’t believe it.

_ I can hear your thoughts, you know.  _ Kylo projects beside me. I can tell he’s making fun of me.

_ Get out of my head then.  _

“We are stopping on Moriband for restocking. Sora and I are going down to negotiate some things with the locals. You can come with us. I’m sure she knows someone who can read Sith.” Kylo turns over to look at me, and I do the same to him. Our eyes make contact, but I don’t shy away. I think back to what my mother said - you’re the child of two Sith, you’re the most powerful person in the galaxy.

_ You and Sora seem close.  _ I think, somewhat bitterly. She did force-feed me two days ago. 

_ Yeah. She’s my… friend. My best friend.  _ Kylo responds.

_ I thought that was Hux.  _

He audibly scoffs.  _ He wishes.  _

I laugh and bury my face in the pillow. He seems so relaxed, so different from the harsh Kylo Ren I used to think of. This must be what Sora sees in him - the good over the bad. I don’t blame her.

_ Careful, Rey. Jealousy is a path to the Dark Side. _

“I’m not jealous!” I say, a little too quickly. My face flushes red, and I’m glad he turned the lights out. He would surely make fun of me if he could see the blush on my cheeks. He can read my thoughts, so I go ahead and ask the question: “How did you meet?”

I can sense his face fall. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me. That was inappropriate.”

“It’s okay.” He says. “You would’ve found out one way or another.” He grabs my hand and brings it to his chest abruptly. “I can show you.”

Suddenly, we’re not in Kylo’s bedroom anymore. We’re on another planet, one with an island surrounded by water. It’s beautiful, peaceful. It’s daytime, and in the distance, I can distinctly see three suns. A boy laughs behind us and I turn around.

It’s Ren. He’s young - no more than fifteen or sixteen. He holds a red lightsaber in one hand, standing on top of rocks. A blue girl sits adjacent to him, with red hair high in a bun. It’s Sora. They’re wearing similar tan outfits. 

Sora strikes the ground with her fist, and a rock shoots into the air. Kylo spins and splits it with his lightsaber in one swift movement. She smiles at him and starts to say something, but then the image fades to black. 

It’s nighttime, and I watch a man walk towards one of the many huts on the island. He holds a saber out like he’s going to strike it. He enters the hut, and in a single moment, I hear another lightsaber ignite, then the hut falls down. Young Kylo runs out of the ruins, blood dripping down his face.

One by one, the doors to the other huts open.

Sora comes out, yelling. “What the fuck happened?”

“Skywalker -” Ren says, out of breath. He is scared, bloody, broken. “He tried to kill me. He lit his saber and held it above my head, and, and, and -”

“Ben, calm down,” Sora says, taking his hand. She turns to the crowd that has gathered around them. “Skywalker has made an attempt on Ben’s life. We’re leaving, and if you want to stay alive, I suggest you come with us.”

In real life, I’m brought out of the vision as Kylo removes my hand from his chest. His eyes are glazed over like he’s about to cry. Without knowing what I’m doing, I wrap my arms around his chest and squeeze tightly.

His breathing stops for a second like he’s not used to the touch of another person. I see the boy, I see the pained expression on his face, and then I see Kylo. 

“We didn’t know where to go,” Kylo speaks to me. “We were scared, alone, inexperienced. We had been abandoned and betrayed by the one person we thought we could trust. All of the bullshit he fed us about the Light… and he couldn’t even practice it himself. There was one craft on the island, and we all piled into it. Sora was the only one who could pilot the slightest bit, and we drove through empty space until we came across Snoke’s ship. I don’t know how, but I knew he was there, and I knew he would help us.”

My heart pours out for the child he once was. I can feel his pain. I can feel the heartbreak on his face as Luke Skywalker began to strike down onto him. 

“Sora swore off the Force that day and she hasn’t been able to use it since; I swore into the Dark Side that day. That’s why Sora and I are so close. That’s why I trust her with everything.” He finishes. I realize that I’m still holding him, but when I go to pull back I feel a force clinging me to him like we are bound together. 

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “What he did to you can’t be forgiven. He failed you and Sora.”

I let go of him, but he catches my arm and turns us so that he is hugging me. “Please.” He says, voice broken. I ache for him, feeling all of his emotions just as he is reliving them. 

We lay like that for a while; I’m not exactly sure how long. My face buried in his neck, his arms wrapping around my back and holding me in close. He breaks the silence first.

“Still jealous?” He smirks, and I pull back from him. He lets me. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

“Careful, Ren.” I taunt him. “I’ve heard narcissism is a path to the Dark Side.”

He smiles - a real, genuine smile. His dimples show and his eyes squint the tiniest bit. It’s beautiful.

“Rey, I wanted to tell you something.” His smile falters a tiny bit. “I… I am sorry for what I first said when you arrived on the Finalizer. You were sick, and I should’ve been more understanding. I should have helped you. You’re not anything I said you were, you're -”

He stops himself before he can say another word, but the thought projects itself.

_ Beautiful. _

We stare into each other’s eyes for a moment. His brown eyes widen like it’s the first time he’s ever said this to anyone. He keeps his calm composure and slowly leans in towards me. My body starts to form grey waves again, this time centered in my lower stomach - this must be what people mean when they get butterflies.

I push through the butterflies as he reaches a hand up to my face, slowly moving my hair behind my ear, and he closes the distance between us and touches his lips to mine.

The butterflies increase when he moves our bodies closer together, slowly deepening our kiss. His lips are soft, tender, and fit into mine like it was made for this. I run my hand from my side to the back of his head, moving it through his hair and softly pulling it. I can feel red rolling off of his body at a slow pace, unlike the normal, faster pace when he’s using the Force.

He shifts closer to me, taking the hand from my hair and running it down my side and tucking it under my leg to pull me into him.

“Kylo, wait… ” I say as I pull back. “I’ve never - I’m, um… “

“What?” He looks confused for a moment, then his eyes widen as he realizes what I mean. “Oh. Oh shit. I’m sorry, I just kinda assumed.”

My eyes narrow. “Assumed what?”

“Not like that, just that you wanted to do stuff or something.” He stutters. This must be the first time someone has turned him down like this - not wanted to have sex while literally laying in his bed. 

I giggle a bit, then stop myself. Since when the fuck did I giggle? “I’ve never even kissed anyone.”

“Ever?” He says. “Even on Jakku?”

“Yes, anyone includes all inhabitants of Jakku,” I say.

“Oh,” He responds. We’re still about a foot apart, heads laying on the pillows, looking into each other’s eyes. “Was that okay?”

“Yes, you dummy.” I laugh again, then close the distance between us, tucking my head into his chest as he wraps his arms around me again. I feel him smile again, then his breathing becomes longer as he falls asleep.

I’ve only ever called Jakku home. I’ve never known any other place so well that I wasn’t afraid of where I was. Here, with Kylo’s arms wrapped around me, I can feel that starting to change. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay i waited nine chapters until they kissed, i think this can be considered slow burn now lol


	10. The Trip to Morriband

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woo another chapter in kylo's pov! yay! also this is quite long, half of it is plot and the other half is smut so yeah.

I wake up to the sound of a loud knock on the door. I look over at Rey, who is still fast asleep. Her face isn’t set in hard lines like this, and her eyes dart back and forth beneath her eyelids. She must be dreaming. 

There’s another knock. I swing my legs over the side and glance at the clock, which flashes a red, almost angry looking five at me. Another sharp knock rings in my ears. 

_ I’m going to fucking kill whoever this is.  _

I open the door, ready to yell at whoever is standing there, but I’m faced with a distressed Sora. She’s dressed in her pajamas, red hair a mess, and looks like she’s been crying.

“Kylo, there’s something wrong.” She says. I immediately shut the door as she continues pacing back and forth across the hall.

“What happened?” I ask, rubbing my eyes as if that’s going to make me less tired.

“I don’t know. I feel it.” She says, pace quickening. “There’s been a shift in the Force. Something’s not right.”

I look at her, puzzled. “Were you able to do anything? Did you use it?”

“No,” She says. “I didn’t use it. I had a dream, Kylo. I think it’s Luke - I think he’s dead.”

All of my senses are heightened whenever she mentions the name, and I’m no longer tired anymore. I close my eyes, trying to feel whatever it is she felt. There are fluctuations in the Force all the time; sometimes there is a greater excess of Light, and sometimes a greater excess of Dark. Ever since Rey started using the Force a month ago, there had been a slow decline towards the Dark, but I couldn’t feel whatever it was that Sora was talking about.

“It’s not there anymore.” She says. “I don’t feel the loss of the Light. Something is wrong though. I know it is, there is something covering it up.”

“Sora, I don’t feel anything,” I tell her. “Are you sure it wasn’t just a dream?”

She snaps her head towards me. “Yes, I’m fucking sure. I saw Luke die. I saw him on that island we were kept on. He lit the huts on fire, then locked himself in.”

I want to tell her that sounds exactly like a vivid dream, that it’s nothing to worry about.

“That’s not all.” She says, voice starting to shake. She looks at the floor. “He looked at me, and he  _ smiled  _ at me. He knew I could see him. When the hut lit on fire, I felt the shift. All of the Light was lost, then it came back. I don’t know how to explain it. I  _ know  _ he is dead.”

“Luke’s been missing for more than ten years, Sora,” I say. “He couldn’t have just gone back to the island.”

She marches over to me and puts a finger on my chest. “Listen to me, Ren. Luke Skywalker just killed himself and I watched it. The last Jedi just  _ committed suicide _ and I can’t feel the loss and unbalance it gave the Force anymore. I’m not going to go back and use that kind of power again - so I’m telling you. Figure out what the hell happened.” 

“What do you want me to do?” I ask. “I can’t magically fix whatever it is that you dreamt. Sounds like it’s all in your mind.”

I feel her grow angry. “That stupid girl is crowding your vision. You can’t even see it.”

I push her hand away and walk back down the hall. “Why would he even contact you?”

Her eyes narrow. “You know as well as I do that I had the most potential for the Light than any of us. I loved him like he was my father, and leaving him hurt like hell; I did all of that for you because everything he told us about the Light was bullshit. I put all of my faith in you.” She turns around, then whips back. “He wanted me to see this. I’m telling you so you can figure out why.”

“Sora, wait -” I call after her, but she’s already rushing down the hallway.  _ Fuck. _

I open the door back up and face the bed, where Rey is still asleep. I crawl back in beside her but lay with enough room between us. I look up at the ceiling and think about everything Sora said. Was Rey crowding my vision? It’s true that since she started using her powers, there has been a gradual decline in the Light. Everything that Sora said about Luke, though? I couldn’t feel anything no matter how hard I tried.

The only way Rey would be able to hide my sight from things would be if she was a true master in the Dark Side, and there was absolutely no way that she was. It would be one hell of an act if she was fronting this innocence, though.

I’m not able to sleep for the rest of the night, so once it gets to around eight hundred hours, I get up and walk to the training room. Meditations should be able to clear my mind.

We’ll be reaching the section of the Outer Rim where Morriband is around fourteen hundred hours, and from the Finalizer to the planet it’s an additional three hours. I’ll meditate until it’s the right time to leave, then.

I close my eyes and let the Force take over me.

-

I lay suspended in the air for hours, concentrating on the Force, letting my mind roam. I let the power of the Dark Side seep into every corner of my body; I can taste the sweetness of the blood of my ancestors, the blood of my enemies, and I feel like I could do anything. Of course, I can do anything - I’m the most powerful person in the galaxy.

My meditations are interrupted when the door to the training room opens, and I immediately turn from where I levitate and throw my unlit lightsaber at whoever crosses the threshold.

Hux ducks his head, scowling at me. 

“Ren!” He yells. “What in the absolute  _ hell?” _

I smirk and take my helmet off, slowly working my way to the ground. “It’s not wise to interrupt me when I’m deep in the Force, General.”

He rolls his eyes, putting his hands behind his back as he paces to me. “We’ve arrived at the Outer Rim. Your ship has been prepared for departure. I understand that Sora Casterfo is aiding as your translator.”

“Yes.” I hold my hand out and let the lightsaber guide it’s way into it, tucking it into my belt and putting my helmet back on.

“What about the girl?” He asks.

Ah, so this is why Hux was here.

“What about her?” I ask. “She’s coming with us.”

“Do you really think that is wise, Ren?” He says. I stalk closer to him and his breath hitches, threatened by the proximity to him. “What would the Supreme Leader say?”

“I don’t really care,” I say. “And if you have any thought for your own safety, you’ll keep your mouth shut about it. Am I understood?”

When he doesn’t respond, I stretch a hand out and start to exert pressure on his head. He doubles over and glares at me. “Yes…” He manages to get out. I relieve him and exit the room.

Going behind Snoke’s back was a risky game. He was omniscient, able to see into all sides of the Force. He would know by now that Rey is a blood Sith; surely, he would’ve also told me. I can’t help but let my mind wander to why he would want her. Initially, I thought he was going to restart the Sith race - but that would require another blood Sith. Before Rey, I was sure they were all extinct. Then I thought it would be to kill her - perhaps he thought she was a threat to the First Order. However, if he wanted her dead, he would’ve commanded me and all of our troops to kill her. My final conclusion is that he wants to train her in the ways of the Dark Side, like me. 

I’m hoping that’s all it is. 

I reach my room and open the door, surprised to see Rey levitating on the bed. She falls onto it when the door opens, yelping a curse word as she hits her head on a bedpost. 

“Nice,” I say, walking to the closet and pulling out a black cloak. “How long were you like that?”

She rubs her head and gets off the bed. “Um… maybe thirty minutes straight? I’ve been trying to for a while, but I keep falling down after a couple of minutes.” 

“What were you thinking about?” I ask, although I already know the answer.

“My mom.” She says. “I thought maybe she would talk to me again.”

I put on the cloak, turning back to Rey. “I don’t think any of the cloaks I have will fit you, but I’m sure Sora would let you borrow one.”

She looks confused. “What’s going on?”

“I told you last night, we’re leaving for Morriband,” I say. “You should be ready by now. It’s time to leave.”

“Okay, okay.” She says, tone tinged with frustration. I watch as Rey opens the lower draw and picks out a long sleeve black shirt and pants. She rushes to the bathroom, and I can hear her frantically putting on clothes. I have to avert my eyes away from the bathroom door - I can practically see her changing without even trying.

She exits the bathroom, hair in three individual buns. I haven’t seen her wear them since she’s been here. She grabs the bag that her belongings came in, a brown bag that she can sling across her body, and tucks the blaster into her waistband.

She glares at me.  _ See? That didn’t take so long. _

“Did you take the pills?” I inquire, and her face falters a bit. She stomps over to the dresser and grabs one, swallowing it dry.

“Open,” I tell her, grabbing her jaw. If Snoke truly is to train her as a Sith, she won’t be able to survive it at this weight. She looks at me, confused, then realizes I’m trying to see if she took the pill or not.

She complies and lets her tongue leave her mouth. I don’t know what she’s trying to do, or if she even knows she’s doing it, but she starts to look up at me with big eyes. Looking at her soft mouth, I become distracted, thinking of the things it could be used for.

Rey walks towards the door, pulling herself from my hand. “Aren’t you coming, Kylo?” She looks back over her shoulder at me, and in that moment I can tell she knew  _ exactly  _ what she was doing.

The trip to Sora’s room is silent for the most part, but I can tell that there is something on Rey’s mind. She seems uneasy. There’s food on the Silencer - I’ll make her eat some of that. Could hunger be the only thing on her mind?

“What’s wrong?” I finally ask, turning in the hall towards Sora.

“Well, we kissed last night and you haven’t said a single word to me about it.” She says, then adds: “I don’t think Sora likes me.”

“Why do you think that?” I ask.

“Oh, so you’re going to completely ignore the first part of that? Nice, Ren.” Rey says, crossing her arms as we continue to walk.

Whatever. I’ll deal with her having a bitchy attitude some other time. She really shouldn’t have been stupid enough to think the kiss meant something. I’ve kissed hundreds of girls, and just because we had a Force bond and I told her about a few tiny little experiences doesn’t mean she gets to know me. If I could just push her out of my mind and stop being so emotional around her, I would. It’s draining to think about her all the time.

Sora opens the door on the first knock. “Kylo. Sleep well?” She greets me. She looks at Rey once, staring her up and down, then returns her gaze to me. “I see you brought a friend. The more the merrier, I guess.”

I sense Rey bunch her hands into fists. I push my pride aside and ask her a question. “Sora, do you have a cloak Rey could borrow?” 

She laughs a bit. “I have a cloak, but it’s not going to fit you. I’ll go grab it though.” Sora turns around and I feel Rey’s anger grow.

_ Calm down.  _ I project to her without glancing to the side.

_ Fuck off. _ She responds.

It’s true; the cloak from Sora dwarfs her. Rey is a couple of inches shorter than her and much smaller so it’s no surprise. Sora locks the door to her room and leaves with us, dressed in a short tank top and shorts and her cloak. That’s one of the traits of being a Twi’lek - they have high body temperatures. 

The ride to the Silencer isn’t as awkward as I thought it was, thanks to Sora. While Rey sulks in the corner of the elevator, Sora tells me about what she had for breakfast, what happened at the party, interesting events on the medic bay, and other things that I don’t have the capacity to take interest in. 

When the elevator doors open, stormtroopers part ways so we can pass through. I’m not sure who they’re staring at more - the Commander, the girl who tried to kill many of them or the blue girl who hasn’t stopped talking since she left the elevator.

“Commander Ren.” Hux greets us. “So glad you could join us, late as usual.”

“Don’t push me, General,” I respond, restraining myself from choking him to shut him up. “I’m not having the best of days.” 

He winces a bit, probably remembering other bad days I’ve had - the destruction of one of our TIE ships, wiping out a command panel, taking a lightsaber to a hallway in the Finalizer after some particularly annoying news from Snoke. I seem to have a lot of those moments.

We board the ship with two droids; they’ll stay and monitor the ship in case something goes wrong. I speak to the command center and exit the bay, turning autopilot on as soon as we leave the vicinity of the receivers of the Finalizer. I let the two droids take over for a while with Sora, who seems completely content talking to them, and walk towards the back of the TIE ship.

This was my go-to ship - I personalized it myself for longer missions away from the First Order fleet. There were two bedrooms in the back, a chest full of food, and a fully equipped defense system. It wasn’t the biggest ship in the fleet, but it definitely wasn’t the smallest either.

I find Rey in the master bedroom. She’s buried in the sheets with the comforter over her head, and she feels… different. Her aura is off.

“Rey,” I say her name softly, placing a hand where her body is. She flinches away from the touch.

“Go away, Kylo,” She says, her voice slightly strained. It sounds like she’s been crying.

“No,” I sit on the side of the bed. “Not until you talk to me. You’re throwing off my energy; it’s distracting.”

She scoffs a bit. “Distracting you? Didn’t know someone like me could do that.”

“It happens quite frequently, actually,” I say. What is up with her? She hasn’t been this upset in a couple of days, at least not directly at me. Fuck, I didn’t even know what I did to her. 

“Frequently like the hundred other girls you’ve kissed?” She says quietly.

_ Oh shit. That’s what’s wrong. _

“Rey, I-”

“No, trust me, I get it.” She says, words become louder as I can tell she grows more upset. “I won’t be so stupid next time to think that what you say to me actually means something - you obviously don’t think what happened between us meant anything.”

I look down at my hands. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t get to just say sorry and think that makes things better, Kylo!” She rips the comforter off of her head and looks at me, eyes red and raw. “Don’t lie to me and pretend you mean it. After all, I’m just the stupid girl, right? That’s what you call me to  _ everyone _ .”

I sit in silence, taking all of her anger. I hurt her. I’ve hurt a lot of people, physically, mentally, and emotionally. The hurt that I’ve given Rey, though… it’s different. I can feel the pain, the sorrow, the bitterness towards me.

“If you just want a quick fuck, Sora is on this ship, too,” Rey adds. “Now that I think about it, the Scrolls only mentioned lust, right? Go find it in one of your other hundred girls.”

“Stop it!” I yell at her, cutting her off. She sits, anger mixed with tons of other emotions pouring out of her. She looks me in the eyes, and while I expect her to back down, she doesn’t. “Stop pretending like you mean absolutely nothing to me. We’re Force bonded, for god sake.”

It’s silent for a minute, as we stare at each other. “I can’t keep doing this, Kylo.” Rey looks at me with so many feelings in her eyes I can barely decipher it. “I can’t keep riding this roller coaster of emotions with you - one day you want to help me, the other day you want to destroy me. One day you try to kill me, another you kiss me. You pretend as if you care about my eating issues but it’s only so you don’t suffer Snoke’s wrath -”

I kiss her, grabbing her head and pulling her closer towards me. It’s the only way to get her to stop talking and feel how I feel for once. She’s hesitant at first, but she gives in to it, kissing me back and letting me feel all of her hurt through the kiss.

I break away first. “You don’t understand what you do to me, Rey. I feel like a different person around you. I’ve never wanted someone in the way I want you. I always think about you, even when I try not to. I want to help you, but I can’t. I’m supposed to be training to be a Sith, not caring about you. I don’t know what to do.”

She kisses me again, stroking the side of my face with her fingertips. This time, our kiss is different. It’s not the quick ones - it’s longer, filled with need and want. I can feel it pouring out of her like a waterfall, seeping into my skin. 

I let my hands trail down her side, moving over the soft fabric that covers her stomach. My hand finds its way into the crevice of her side, and she pulls me closer to her, so close that my body is laying on hers. Her head hits the pillow and she stretches her neck back, allowing me access to the delicate skin there. It’s pure, innocent, untouched. 

I plant kisses on the side of her neck as she moves her fingers through my hair, gently tugging the curls. I can feel her breathing becoming faster, heart beating quicker than my own. I bite the side of her neck and she lets out a sharp sigh.

She moves her hands down my back, pulling at the hem of my shirt. I sit up and throw it to the side, letting the Force decide where it falls. She cups my face with her hands, and I move mine to the edge of her shirt, letting my fingers stretch against her stomach. It’s so small that I can almost fit the length of my hand across it. 

I look up at her.  _ This only goes as far as you’re willing to take it. _

She doesn’t say anything, but her head nods, and she grabs the edge of her shirt and pulls it off. I take a second to look at her body. She’s gained fifteen pounds since I last saw her from the pills - she’s taken three of them. Her collarbones no longer protrude from her body, her ribs don’t stick out from her chest. Her skin doesn’t sink in around her bones anymore, and her complexion isn’t dull.

She’s beginning to be healthy again. She’s beginning to be okay.

I sit back on my legs and move hers so that they are apart. I lean forward on her and I make contact with her skin. She’s still so little compared to me, I’m afraid I might hurt her. I want to protect her, care for her. I want her to feel safe.

I leave a trail of kisses from her collarbone to the bottom of her stomach and she moves her hips in want. 

_ Kylo, please.  _

I look up and into her eyes.  _ What is it? _

She doesn’t respond, only letting out a tiny sound. Her breaths are uneven, her hips bucking up to make contact with my body.

I unbutton her pants and take them off. She’s wearing white cotton panties. Cute. I press my lips to her left knee, trailing them down to where her hips meet her legs. I press the pad of my thumb on her clit, and her hips press back into my hand with an equal force. She parts her lips.

I start to rub slow circles over her panties, watching a wet spot grow darker. I can sense all of her emotions, all of the tension built up in her stomach. She wants release.

“Do you want me to?” I ask, still moving my finger on her clit. I can tell she’s trying to control her breath, trying to not let any moans out. I want to make her release all of that. I want to make her come.

“Kylo, I need you,” She says breathlessly. 

_ Tell me if you want me to stop.  _ I project to her, placing a kiss where my finger once was then taking off her panties.

I can see her clenching her thighs, trying to get some relief. I smirk and part her legs again, watching her become wetter until she is practically dripping. It’s so cute; I haven’t even fully touched her yet.

My head dips between her legs, licking a stripe across her flesh. I can feel her tense up, finally beginning to let out moans as her legs fall farther from each other. I place my hands under her thighs and grip them, holding them in place as I continue to lick her entrance. She tastes sweet and warm.

Her guards come down as her fingers pull harder at my hair. I know what she wants, but I don’t want her to have it yet. I want her to beg for it. She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, but I hear a chorus projected from her.

_ Please, please, please…  _ She repeats over and over.

“Use your words, Rey,” I tell her. She looks so fucked out, face flushed. If she hadn’t told me she was a virgin, I would definitely have assumed it by now. She’s never been touched here before, never had someone make her feel this good.

Her hair has fallen out of the buns, her face glistening and her eyes glossed over. If angels were real, this is what they would look like. 

“Kylo, I want you to - I want you to touch me there again,” She says, and I can tell it’s hard for her to admit it to me. No matter how much bliss she is in right now, she still tries to hold the power.

“I know you can do better than that,” I smirk, moving my tongue from her entrance to her clit, licking it once. Her hips move into my touch, craving it more and more. 

She lets out a whine, and my dick is so hard that it hurts. It’s the first time I’ve really noticed that I’m horny, too - I’ve been so focused on giving her the pleasure I want her to have that I haven’t paid attention to it. 

“Please make me come, Kylo,” She says, voice high pitched and dripping with want. “I need it so bad it hurts. I’ll do anything for you, just let me come.” 

Her voice resumes the repeat of  _ please _ and I’m sure she can’t be bothered to stop it right now. I give in to her needs and massage my tongue and against her clit. There’s a high whine that she lets out as her legs clench around my head, pulling me closer into her warmth. She letting out little moans, and they’re fucking beautiful. I could come just from hearing them.

Her grip on my curls becomes tighter as her whines get louder, and I can tell she’s on the brink of orgasm. I look up at her from beneath her legs - her head is back, exposing her neck, legs cushioning the sides of my face, stomach moving in and out with her quick breaths. She looks like a goddess;  _ my  _ goddess.

“Kylo, fuck, I’m gonna -” She doesn’t finish the rest of her sentence, letting it fade away.

_ Come for me.  _ I tell her, and she obeys, clit throbbing on my tongue. Her breathing stops in the middle of her orgasm, eyes fluttering shut in ecstasy. I let her press against my face as she comes hard, the tension in her stomach flushing out. Towards the end of it, I roll onto my side and join her on the pillow.

She lays there, frozen in pure pleasure. I pull her into my arms, her naked body laying on top of mine. I hope she can’t tell that I’m hard. Her mind slowly winds down, breathing going back to normal as she listens to my heart beating in my chest.

“Do you want me to…?” She asks and sits up, and I can tell she’s talking about my dick. I shake my head side to side.

“Just relax,” I tell her, letting her ease back into my arms. 

The other people I’ve been with are used to things like this; this is Rey’s first time. I want her to feel comfortable with me, secure in my arms. I want to take care of her. I can feel her discomfort with her naked body grow as she becomes fully aware of reality.

Without moving our bodies apart, I reach a hand out and let her clothes guide their way to me. I set them on the opposite side of the bed and look towards the wall, allowing her to get dressed without me seeing her. 

“Thank you,” She says and I turn back around. Rey gives me a small smile. I pull the comforter over us both, letting her nestle into my chest again. Suddenly, I feel an alarm go off in her brain. “What if Sora heard us?”

I laugh a bit. “She didn’t. I had these walls soundproofed when I first got the ship.”

_ Oh.  _ I feel her stomach sink a little bit. 

I turn her head to look into my eyes. “Hey,” I softly say, pressing a kiss to her forehead. I feel her start to relax more after that small display of affection. I can tell she’s sleepy. “Just try to rest. It’s okay.”

I rub her arm until she falls asleep on me. She’s so beautiful, so peaceful. I never want anyone else to touch her the way I have. She’s mine.

Rey is mine.


	11. Negotiations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof sorry it's been so long since I've posted, I've been working full time over the summer so I haven't had anytime to write. enjoy xx

We dock on Morriband around twenty hundred hours. My mind still spins around the events that happened a few hours ago, but if I think about the actions too long, I start to reminisce a little more about it than I should.

When I leave Kylo’s room, I find him playing a game with one of the droids. They sit at a round table, circling around the game. It’s a board filled with small holograms and monsters, and every time one of the players moves towards another, someone dies. Sora and Kylo sit on one side of it, glancing between each other and the board.

The droid moves a piece and destroys one of the figures; judging by the looks of they’re faces, they lost.

“Fuck!” Sora exclaims, getting up and turning off the game. “I can’t sit here and lose to this _computer_ one more time.”

She notices me then. “Finally, you’re awake. We’ve been waiting on you forever.” No sooner do the words leave her mouth when she picks her hand up and smacks her neck with it.  
“Ow, what the hell?”

Kylo gives a mischievous smile behind her, and I return it. He looks me up and down like I’m the most attractive thing in the room. Butterflies start in my stomach again, so I turn and grab my cloak from where it hangs so I have something to divert my attention to.

Sora turns around and kicks his leg and he laughs.

“We’re meeting with Count Lijo in an hour in the racing square,” Sora tells us. “We should go ahead and leave; the city is dangerous at night.”

Kylo laughs a little bit. “I’m sure it is.” He walks over to me and grabs his cloak. When I refuse to make eye contact with him, he hooks a finger under my chin and makes me look at him. “You okay?”

I nod my head and give him a soft smile. “Yes.”

Somehow, I feel like I’m another tally mark in his book - that I’m just another body to him. I’m hoping that’s not the case. I’ve never felt so close to anyone like this, never been in someone’s mind like this. I push the thoughts out of my mind and he presses the button for the platform to lower. Sora walks out first, with Kylo behind her and me at his side.

She turns around and says something to the droids - I’m not sure what, but they nod and close the door behind us.

Morriband is dark and cold. I shiver underneath my cloak as we walk across the terrain. The ground is rough clay, tinted dark red, and I see three red moons illuminating the sky. It looks bloody, harsh. I can see the outline of the city, maybe a mile out, but I can already hear the sound of life - creatures yelling, screaming, talking, chanting.

“Count Lijo and his negotiations are the first priority,” Sora says. “I know someone who can probably read the Scroll for us. Did you bring it?”

I pat the middle of the bag, where the book is. “Yes.”

“Good.” She says. “His name is Mantella. He knows the best places in the city to hang out - we’ll go with him wherever he wants after.”

I look over at Kylo, confused. “We’re not going back to the ship?”

Sora laughs in front of us. “Honestly, Rey, do you even know him at this point? Of course, we’re not going back. Morriband is a city surrounded by darkness for a reason.”

Kylo doesn’t say anything. I wasn’t ready to go out and he never told me anything about it. I try to brush off the shiver that rises in my spine after her last sentence.

Sora talks to us the rest of the way to the city until we reach the walls.

 _Were you going to tell me about the after-party?_ I project.

 _Mantella always parties. We were gonna have to go to one to get to him. Besides, they’re fun. Have you been to one?_ He responds.

 _Yeah_. I lie to him. I can feel him smile from under his mask.

 _Nothing like the ones here_.

“Don’t worry, Rey,” Sora says, as we finally approach the wall. “We’ll show you a good time.”

The Rakata, the native inhabitants of the planet, look strange to me - I’ve never seen an alien like them. Their heads are long and disfigured, eyes jutting out to the sides. I’m sure they look at me the same way. Sora speaks in a foreign dialect, and they chatter back. It’s strange, a mixture of clicks and sighs. Finally, they open the gates to the city, and she bows to them.

The gates must’ve been a hundred feet tall, but it’s nothing compared to the structures inside the walls. Small flats are stacked on top of each other, each one tinier than the previous. There are steps that border the side of the buildings, where young Rakata, humans, and others roam. I want to yell at them to stop, that they’ll fall, but I restrain myself.

They’re not my problem.

We follow Sora through the city without any issues, but if Kylo wasn’t wearing a cloak to cover his mask, I’m sure there would’ve been someone to stop us. The streets are fairly crowded, and every so often I feel someone push past me, rushing towards the direction we’re walking.

We reach another tall gate, one that borders a coliseum. I can hear the cheers coming from inside of it. Sora greets the people who are guarding the entrance to the highest parts of the wall, where I can only assume Count Lijo is. The doors creak open and we are led up a flight of stairs, in a single file. We climb higher and higher until we tower above the gates, and I get nauseous when I look down.

“Commander Ren,” The man I assume is Count Lijo sits atop a throne-like structure, climbing down when he sees us. He bows his head before Kylo, and we repeat the action - it must be a sign of respect in Rakata culture.

“Good evening, Count Lijo,” Kylo speaks, voice crackling and deep through the mask. Sora speaks to the Rakata warriors that are seated on the floor, and they move to allow two chairs to be brought through the small crowd.

The platform we are standing on hangs suspended in the air above the coliseum. It’s about as big as the training room on the Finalizer, so it seats all of us comfortably. Count Lijo’s throne sits towards the front, with some of the warriors positioned around and some Rakata and human women laying on the ground amongst pillows and blankets. They are dressed in lavish gold and silver chains, wearing clothing which only covers their most intimate parts. They are beautiful.

Sora and Kylo sit down in the seats next to the throne where the warriors placed them, while I stand awkwardly behind Sora’s seat.

“My apologies, I was not expecting a third guest.” Count Lijo says. I bite my lip nervously.

“All is alright,” Kylo replies. “She can stand.”

 _Thanks_. I think angrily.

 _He’s powerful. It’ll be over in a little bit._ Kylo responds.

“What brings you to Morriband, Commander?” Lijo says. “Would you like a drink, some food, anything like that?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Kylo responds. I’ve never heard him say thank you before. Maybe these negotiations really are important. “We are here to request food and gas as we continue to Supreme Leader Snoke’s ship; in exchange, we will deploy some of our troops here for protection against the Resistance and use at your disposal.”

“Anything to replenish the First Order’s supplies,” Lijo says. “As you know, we support you with all you do. We are hoping that you’ll be the Supreme Leader, once Snoke is gone and you are a true Sith.”

There are people who oppose Snoke? Who support the First Order? Strange.

“The Supreme Leader sees all, Count,” Kylo replies. “It would be in your best interest to avoid disrespecting him.”

“I see, I see. In any case, the games are about to begin. I hope you enjoy it.” One of the warriors stands up after Lijo finishes talking. The Rakata man brings a horn to his lips and blows into it, and the crowd in the coliseum falls silent. He says a few words in the language and cheers erupt again.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the coliseum before now, as I was taking in Count Lijo and the rest of his service. It’s extremely large, with several doors lining the sides of it. The doors creak open slowly as creatures emerge from each one. There must be a thousand people here, maybe more, and they all cry out as the creatures step into the arena.  
Neither Kylo nor Sora elaborated on what these “games” would be like, so I’m not sure what to expect.

That is until I see a large stick protruding from an exit and stabbing one of the creatures in the side. My breath stops and my eyes grow wider as I see blood spill from the animal. The others in the arena start to crowd around the wounded one, beginning to fight each other for the meal before them.

They’re killing innocent animals.

I advert my eyes to the crowd and take in their reactions. I see money being passed around, children and adults cheering throughout, bets being placed, money being won. It’s disgusting. It’s vile. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

“I need to step out for a moment. I need to use the bathroom,” I say, loud enough for everyone on the platform to hear me. I sense that Kylo is confused, but I brush the thoughts he sends to me away. I need to get out. I need to be away from the murder in the arena.

Sora opens her mouth and clicks to the two warriors crowding the entryway, and they move to the side to allow me to pass through. I rush down the stairs as quickly as I can, almost falling on a few unstable bricks, and I throw my hood off and hold my hair up. The vomit comes out of me easily, and I’m glad I left when I did.

The bile burns the back of my throat and I wipe my mouth, panting hard. I don’t feel like I’m going to vomit anymore, but I don’t feel much better either. The fight between the animals for the wounded creature with blood spilling on the white sand replays in my mind.

_Calm down, Rey. Breathe. It’s going to be okay._

It’s not going to be okay, but as long as I repeat the words, maybe I can convince myself otherwise. I begin to walk down the windy streets, donning the hood again as I pass Rakata, humans, and other species. I push all thoughts from my mind and concentrate on my task at hand - sending the letter I wrote my first day on the Finalizer to Finn. There has to be at least one Resistance sympathizer here; finding them is the hard part.

An idea pops into my mind. Kylo is able to look into other’s minds and read their thoughts - maybe I can do the same.

I crouch down on the side of a structure, thinking about Finn and Leia and all of the words I wish I could say to them. Along with the note to Finn, I also addressed a message to Leia and a message to Han. Hopefully, they’re still together by now, and they're working together. If Han has flown somewhere on the Millenium Falcon, maybe Leia can deliver the message for me.

I need to find resistance sympathizers. That’s how I’ll get the note out.

When I open my eyes, a red path creeps out before me, dipping behind the corner of a building. I stand up and instinctively follow it, walking around buildings and huts and shacks until I come across a bar. Lights flash out of it in an array of colors. I take a deep breath and enter it, finding myself surrounded by creatures of all forms of life: Rakata, humans, and everything else. I find an empty seat quickly as the red path dies down, and I wait.

Will someone come to me? Will I have to ask around? I’m sure that if I asked someone about this, they’d freak out and try to kill me, so I go against that plan.

I wait around ten minutes, observing everyone in the bar. It’s a strange place. I see people drinking, smoking, making out, gambling. It looks like the epicenter of life on this planet, aside from the amphitheater. The image of a dying animal flashes in my mind and I grimace.

“Is this seat taken?”

I look up and am faced with a man cover in Mandalorian armor. I shake my head no, and he sits opposing me.

“My name is Sphern. You seem familiar…” He falls silent for a few moments, and I decide that it’s now or never, and I remove my hood from my head. “Rey.”

“How do you know who I am?” I ask. I’m not afraid of him. I will end him if I have to.

“Leia has been looking for you. She’s sent many of the Resistance fleet after you. I’m lucky I found you first, there’s a huge amount of worth to you're name right now.” Sphern says. I lean over the table towards him.

“I’m collecting information for the Resistance right now,” I say under my breath, hoping that he won’t see through my lies. “I have a note for Leia. She’ll know what to do with it.” I open the bag and slide the piece of paper across the table. Sphern takes it and shoves it into the leather pocket attached to his belt.

“Thank you,” I say, putting my hood on to cover my face. I slide out of the booth, turning to leave. I see the door insight, and I can feel Sphern following me. If I can just make it out of the door, I can run back to Kylo…

He grabs my wrist as I get to the door frame. “You didn’t think I’d let you leave that easily, did you?”

 _Fuck_.

I turn around and shove the palm of my hand into the crease of his armor between his neck and his head, startling him to let go of my wrist. I run out of the door into the ash-colored dirt, and no sooner do I leave than I find myself face to face with a tall cloaked figure.

It’s Kylo.

I can’t see his face, but I know that he’s pissed off. He grabs my arm and steps in front of me so that he’s between me and the Mandalorian.

“It would be wise of you to leave this planet now,” He says, voice crackling through the mask. Sora is behind him, crossing her arms and shaking her head. She looks at me with a mixture of disgust and disappointment and I try not to scowl back. She probably had something to do with this. “Before I slice that armor off of you're body.”

“I’d like to see you try.” The Mandalorian says back. Kylo ignites his lightsaber, and a red flash illuminates the alleyway. People from the bar are starting to look outside, crowding the windows and doors.

Sphern reaches for his belt and pulls out a gun, pointing it at Ren. In a swift movement, almost too quick to see, Kylo knocks the gun from his hand with the Force and swings his lightsaber in a motion towards his neck, close enough to slash through the mask. The Mandalorian stumbles backward, grabbing his face. There’s a gash in the mask long enough to expose his face, which drips with blood onto the ground. In the moment of weakness, Kylo steps towards him and pushes him to the ground, placing a foot on his chest. He pulls the lightsaber over his head and brings it down quickly.

“No!” I scream out, instinctively catching Kylo’s arm right before the lightsaber smashes into the Mandalorian’s head. I can feel the anger redirect towards me, and he whips around and grabs me by the neck, pressing down on the sides of it so that the blood is leaving my head. I grab his hand, trying to pry it off.

“Kylo…” I stutter out, my hands failing to break the hold he has on me. “Stop… please....”

He lets go after a few more moments, and his body no longer radiates anger towards me. It’s cold.

I fucked up.

The Mandalorian scrambles up and runs down the alley, but Kylo is only focused on me now. He stares at me through his mask, and I can feel his eyes running down my body, giving me an emotion I cannot quite decipher.

He grabs my wrist, leading me away from Sora, and gripping it so hard that it hurts. He practically drags me through the city streets, and I look back to Sora for help. I can see her entering the bar. Even she won’t help me now. Of course she won’t, her loyalty is to Kylo alone.

He stops when we get to a bare alley shrouded in darkness, finally letting go of my wrist and pushing me against the wall so hard that the hood of my cloak falls off. He takes off his mask and I can finally see his face - cold, dark, and emotionless. I try to pry myself off of the wall, but he has suspended me there with the Force.

I can only watch him as he lights his saber again and goes to the opposite wall, slashing a few marks into it with so much anger that it terrifies me. He turns around and paces back towards me.

“You think you can just run away from me and I won’t find out?” He says, pacing across the alley and knocking a trash can over. “You think you can leave me?”

I wince as he brings the lightsaber down a few feet from where I am stuck on the wall.

“You forget who you are dealing with, Rey,” Kylo says. “I am the most powerful thing in this whole goddamn galaxy. I will take whatever the fuck I want. I will kill whatever the fuck I want.” He walks towards me. “That includes you.”

My breath hitches as he comes close and closer to my face. He brings the lightsaber between us, letting it rest on the wall behind my head. I can feel the heat flickering off of it, crackling beside me. He takes the hand not holding the lightsaber and cups my face, forcing me to look at him.

His eyes are filled with rage… and lust. I can feel it rolling off of his body in waves, entering my space and suffocating me with all of him. I feel butterflies in my stomach. His scar looks black in this lighting. I want to kiss it.

I can’t even begin to decipher the emotions boiling inside of me, so I decide to focus on only one: lust.

He drops the lightsaber to the ground and pushes his lips against mine, allowing the Force to let go of me. I immediately kiss him back, wrapping my legs around his waist and my hands gripping his hair. He moans when I pull on it, and he holds me against the wall with his body. I can feel his hands tighten on my ass, squeezing it. I let out a soft whine into his mouth, letting it trail out when he starts to kiss my neck. He starts to suck it, and I know it will bruise. I don’t care that we’re in public; I want him now.

“You want me, huh?” He smirks against my skin. My cloak drops to the ground, his hands still grabbing my ass. I know he’s hard; I can feel it through my pants. He uses the force to hold my hands above my head, still against the wall.

“Yes, Kylo, please,” I whine, trying to grind down onto his dick. He laughs a bit, then restrains my hips against the wall.“You’re not in control here.” He says into my ear. “I don’t care what you want. I’ve already planned how you’re going to lose your virginity to me, Rey. It’s not here.”

I can practically feel myself becoming wetter as his voice drips with need. I know he wants it, so why won’t he take me now?

“Please, I need it,” I say.

He laughs again. “You’ll have to work on your begging, little bird.”

He bends down, detaching himself from my body, as I strain against the Force to touch him. I want him, I want him, I want him….

Kylo works my pants off of me so that my entire lower half is bare except for my underwear. I shiver with need. He slides my panties to the side, and he’s so close to my heat that I can feel his breath. I want to close that gap, I want to feel his tongue on me.

“Be quiet.” He commands. “Your thoughts are screaming at me.” He stands up again and rests a padded finger on my entrance. It’s only then that I realize he still has his gloves on.

“You want it so bad?” I nod my head to his question quickly, whimpering as he teases my slit. “Then fucking take it.”

He pushes his entire finger into me and I grip his hair hard, whining into his neck. He starts to finger me at a fast pace, hooking his finger so that it hits the sweet spot that I didn’t even know I had until earlier today. He hits it repeatedly and fast, and I become putty in his hands. I can’t even think straight anymore; all that’s in my mind is bliss.

He works another finger into me, continuing his pace. “You’re so wet for me, Rey,” He says as I cry out into his neck. “Everyone in this sector is gonna know how much of a slut you are for me if you keep this up.” He looks up at me and covers my mouth with his other hand. “So _shut the fuck up_.”

“Fuck you.” I manage to get out as I get closer to my climax.

“You wanna come on my fingers?” He says, looking me in the eyes, and I not frantically. He pushes his fingers faster so that he’s hitting my spot, and it feels so good that I want to cry.

I’m so close, so I close my eyes and bite his hand to keep from screaming. All of a sudden, the warmth of his hand is gone. I feel empty inside without them. My eyes open instantly and I’m faced with a smirk.

“Too bad,” He says, wiping his hand on his cloak as he pushes my panties back over me. He slides my pants up and I can’t even process what’s happening. My mind is blank, empty, and filled with thoughts of him. He lets go of me from against the building and I fall to the ground.

He crouches down in front of me to tousle my hair. I stare at the ground, still breathless, and he grips my hair to make me look at him.

Kylo smiles at me, and says, “Don’t ever try to fly away from me again, little bird.” He pulls me up with him with his other hand, holding me close to his chest. I don’t dare to break eye contact with him. “I won’t hesitate to clip your fucking wings.”


End file.
